The Claire Byrne Show
Be Like the Sea: Life, Learnings and Leadership from an Irish Navy Captain
28 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
My next guest spent two decades in the Irish Navy, rising to become captain of the LEAFA. And during her career, she played a key role in intercepting a major cocaine shipment. She took part in the rescue of sailors from a sunken submarine and so much more. In her memoir, Be Like the Sea, Life, Learnings and Leadership from an Irish Navy Captain,
She shares the experiences, the challenges and the lessons that shaped her time in the Navy. And she's here now to tell the tale. Former Irish Navy Captain Marie Gleeson. Marie, you're so welcome. Thank you, Clare. Lovely to have you here. I said to you when you came in that I got lost in the book and I really did. I loved reading it.
It's a fascinating story from start to finish, which we're going to go through now. But in the beginning, it wasn't really the Navy that you wanted to join, was it?
No.
No, yeah, no. I'd say I would have been fascinated by the Navy back then because I didn't know anything about the Navy. So I come from a really small dairy farm in Tipperary. I grew up on the farm, eldest of six, out on the farm with my dad.
You're like us and Leisha, we're lucky to see the sea once a year.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I had an uncle in the army. I was used to running around fields. I probably didn't see myself doing a nine to five job realistically. So the army was the one I wanted. And unfortunately, my life took a bit of a off the rails moment on a number of different factors that I talk about in the book.
So the trajectory that I was on, I came off, didn't get the army, just missed out. And then the Navy had only just imagined started taking women in the mid 1990s, which is crazy when you think about it.
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Chapter 2: What inspired Marie Gleeson to join the Irish Navy?
Didn't know anything about pubs, you know, and suddenly very social person, quite outgoing, gregarious, loved the crack. So I was, fell into lots of different things. So my academic trajectory went definitely off the track. So didn't do very well in my leaving cert, you know, didn't get the army, just missed out, got into a course in UCC I didn't really want to be in. So a little bit lost. Yeah.
And then the Navy pops up on your radar. Yeah, so my uncle would have advised me at the time because I definitely wanted the army. So he said, do the Air Corps, the Navy interviews. I said, I'm not doing the Air Corps because I don't want to fly. I'll do the Navy, no problem. They won't take me. Like Dairy Farmer's daughter, no maritime experience.
So like when we got through all the stage gates and the letter came And my parents and myself sat down and it was like the Navy. I was like, I asked my mum, would you ring competition section to see if they made a mistake? So that's how off course I was.
But I think when I went to the boot camp then, like the boot camp is, you know, that really intense military, like physical, but you're being pushed and challenged. I loved it. Like I loved being up in the Curragh. So I kind of felt like if I excelled in the Curragh, they would realise the mistake and they might keep me. And then obviously I did great, but they couldn't keep me.
So then I ended up back down in the base learning about navigation, spherical trigonometry, all these crazy subjects. But actually getting out onto a ship for the first time, first of all, I don't get seasick, which is hugely beneficial when you're in a career that's maritime based. Well, yes, I can imagine that that's bottom line, you know.
Yeah, but I really loved being at sea, like from the get go. You know, once I got used to the kind of circumstances and, you know, the intensity of the engine room or You know, being up on deck, learning about boats and how to launch and drive small boats, starting to learn about navigation. But actually, for me, it's crazy when you think about it. But like, I actually really loved the sea.
I love the expanse of the ocean. Like I loved when we were 200 miles off the west coast of Ireland, away from everything. But it's... It's hard to put it into words, but there's a power in the sea. And I think the sea is a very feminine energy as well. So like, you know, you can have a flat calm ocean and 24 hours later, it's a raging storm when you're out there. So I loved that power.
The other element of it is that you're in enclosed quarters, you know, with people that you might choose to be with and there's no escape. How did you deal with that? Did that bother you at all?
I don't know. I probably bothered people more than they bothered me, Clare, if I'm being really honest.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Marie face as a woman in the Navy?
Like very enthusiastic, very driven. I talk a lot. I'm full on. So like some of the advice you get in a military career is to kind of keep yourself in the middle, be the grey person in the class because then you're not under too much heat and you're also taking along. I wasn't great at taking that advice. So I was like normally throwing myself into it. So I think.
For me, learning to understand how I impacted on other people was a big part of the training. And one thing about the job, you get really tough feedback from the get go.
And when you have someone telling you where you're maybe not reaching the mark, whether it's your physical, whether it's your conduct, whether it's the approach you're taking, you know, you first of all, you take that as reflection on you and you hear it all as bad stuff. Yes. Which is natural. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Oh, yeah.
But there's a moment when something flicks in your head or for me anyway, where it was like, well, actually, they're trying to make me better and they're trying to make me, you know, a better asset here, part of the team and realizing that sometimes I didn't.
need to be as enthusiastic as I was, or maybe that I was, you know, having an impact on other people who maybe were struggling with being at sea or maybe weren't as outgoing as I was. So actually realising that you can moderate your presence and have a powerful impact for other people.
Yeah. And some people, you know, your superiors were really good to you and really encouraging, but you're very open and honest about the fact that not everybody was like that. And, you know, you've mentioned already that women were pretty new to the Irish Navy and there were some men who didn't want you around.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's funny, actually, when I look back now, sometimes they were the easier ones to deal with in terms of like, you knew that they weren't really 100% sure, you knew maybe they didn't want women there. So nearly for me, There was a motivation factor in proving them wrong. Like, I can do this absolutely as well as anybody else.
But then actually some of the more tough individuals to deal with were the guys who had daughters our age, because sometimes they wanted to mind you. So, oh, Cadac Leeson, you can't pull that line or somebody jump in there and help Cadac Leeson with that. And you're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let me do it. I can do it.
So actually having a conversation with someone who's trying to help you and asking them to step back, that's actually really tough. Yeah, because that's more hurtful for them, isn't it? Because they think they're doing the right thing. Yeah, totally. So I can remember navigating one of those conversations.
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Chapter 4: How did Marie's early experiences shape her leadership style?
And that was the time when she told us it was something with the heart. And I suppose I knew plenty of people who had holes in hearts or maybe, you know, heart things. So in my head, it was like, this will be, you know, this is... We've all heard it growing up, you know, that it was an issue and people are fine with it. But then we went to the Coombe and we met the paediatric cardiologist.
I was 24 weeks pregnant, so just coming up on six months. And that was a really tough day. And I talk about it in the book and I know it'll be a motive for people, but like to get such a stark diagnosis where it was such a complicated heart defect that they told us to consider England and termination as the first option. And for me and John at the time, that was such a blow.
But making the decision as to what to do next, like from a maternal, you know, I find this hard, but like maternally, I was on the floor like I was just gone, like I don't even remember an awful lot of those meetings. But militarily, I'm trained to make decisions. That's what you're paid. You get in charge allowance on a ship to make really tough calls.
So I think that military skill set was me coming out, taking emotion out of it and making decisions. And then we made the decision to go to term. So then the maternal me had to pick myself up and we didn't tell an awful lot of people at all because we were trying to protect them. But my decision and myself and John was that we would continue as strongly and as best as we could.
So every day for me was, you know, if he got stronger, if he grew because they'd given us such a bad diagnosis. So when Ciarán was born, they had asked us to sign a DNR in the Coombe. They had told us that he wouldn't cry. So Sean Daly was the obstetrician who was with us in surgery in the emergency section.
And I remember, I remember that moment just before he was going to take Ciarán because he said something to me. And he lifted Ciarán out and Ciarán roared the place down, like roared. And I remember Sean Daly looking at me and just being like, this is a fighter. So Ciarán was in Crumlin within three hours of being born and they had told us he would never get to Crumlin.
So John went away in the ambulance with him. And like for me, that was massive in lots of respects. But even that John got to have time with him because I'd had nearly 10 months. Yeah. So I think that but I think the week that we were there because he was 814 and he was gorgeous and there's a beautiful my favorite photo of him in the book.
I was looking at it again this morning.
What a gorgeous child. He was like gorgeous. Yeah, I do think every mother thinks their child is gorgeous, but I really think he was beautiful. And his name actually means little dark prince. And he absolutely was. But unfortunately, you know, everything that was wrong with his heart was wrong with his heart. But he had this amazing first couple of days where, you know, we got to christen him.
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Chapter 5: What lessons did Marie learn from her time at sea?
And when I, there's a whole other side in the book about the journey to command and taking command of the Alifa. But a year and a half later, when I went out to Aoife, like I knew I wasn't the same person, but I knew I could be a really good captain and I could be a very good leader. because I understood emotional intelligence and empathy in a way that I never understood before.
So we could still work to the highest level. We could be absolutely professional. But at the same time, you know, I wasn't going to make people's lives any more difficult.
That's what I really like about it, that you were the best that you can be and you were the best of the best. But you recognised what you had been through and you brought that to your work life. And that's I mean, that is just being completely authentic.
Yeah, well, Ciarán gave me huge bravery. Like even the day I took command in Waterford, I had my speech written and I knew that's a big day in your career. Like the VIPs are there, the head honchos, all the crew are there and you get to make your first kind of public speech as a captain. And I had written what I felt was a strong, you know, address as much as for my crew as for anybody else.
But as I walked out that day, the one person who wasn't in it was Ciarán. So as I stood at the podium in Waterford, I remember this moment and just being like, no, I can't deny him. So I said something like recognising John and the sport with the bouncing little boy that should have been on his daddy's knee.
And the old me would have thought that would have made me weak and might have thought that my crew weren't able. But actually, for me, that was showing my crew that I was absolutely resilient, strong and could cope with whatever was going to come at us in the following two years.
But I think that the decisions around the Navy, like there's a there's a whole other side to our story around infertility and what came next. And unfortunately, our journey to have more children wasn't straightforward. And everything they had told me about my fertility journey came to fruition. And we went through a really difficult, difficult journey to have the girls
And some of that I did when I was towards the end of my command at sea. But again, when I had the girls then, there was this recognition that, you know, I had lost all that time with Ciarán and I didn't want to lose more time with the girls. And unfortunately, the way the military promotion system works, you do have to sacrifice a lot from a family perspective.
I have huge respect for the people who do. But, you know, it didn't mean the same to me then. And also I wanted to be me. And you can't be you when you're in a uniform all the time. And that that cadet who was gregarious and outgoing and talked a lot and asked a lot of questions. That is me.
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Chapter 6: How did Marie handle feedback and criticism in her career?
I don't know. I have a suspicion, but I don't know. And if it's who I think it is, I never would have thought they'd mess it into a radio show. So I didn't know anything about it. But yeah, I just think, yeah, look, the Navy made me the woman I am. But Kiran gave me the bravery to walk away. when it would have been easier to stay in a lot of respects.
Look, Marie, we're going to leave it there, but I just want to tell people I loved this book. And as I said to Marie when she walked in, I just took such joy out of reading it because it is so honest. And it's so interesting because the Irish Navy, there are very few people who know the Navy as intimately as you and a couple of your colleagues do.
It's called Be Like the Sea, Life, Learnings and Leadership from an Irish Navy captain by Marie Gleeson. An honour to meet you.
Thank you so much. Pleasure. Thank you, Clare.