Sicele O'Brien (1 April 1887 – 18 June 1931) was one of Ireland's pioneering pilots. She was one of three women who raced and set records in Europe and Africa in the 1920s. She was the second woman in Britain or Ireland to get a commercial pilots licence. She was the first woman in Britain or Ireland to run an air taxi service.

Early life

Born in London as Sicele Julia Mary Annette O'Brien to Sir Timothy Carew O'Brien, 3rd Baronet and Gundrede Annette Teresa de Trafford of Lancashire. She had two brothers and seven sisters. Her father was an England

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

captain and Deputy Lieutenant as well as Justice of the Peace for County Cork. O'Brien grew up in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

, London and

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

. One of the family homes was Lohort Castle, Mallow, was burned in 1921. O'Brien was living there in the census in 1911. O'Brien was initially well known as a hunter and tennis player.

World War One

O'Brien served as a First Aid Nursing Yeomanry driver in the Western theatre of war between May 1917 and April 1919 and received a British War Medal and Victory Medal. Her father also served and her older brother Timothy was killed in action in 1916.

Flying

O'Brien was a member of the London Light Airplane Club. She got her commercial pilots licence in 1927 and was the second woman in Ireland and the UK to do that. She won the first women's air race – the Aerial Oaks in 1926. With Lady Heath she set the 1928 British Altitude record. In June 1928, she wrote an article on "Flying as a Career for Women" in The Women Engineer, the journal of the Women’s Engineering Society. On 20 October 1928 she lost a leg in an accident near

Mill Hill Mill Hill is a suburb in the London Borough of Barnet, England. It is situated around northwest of Charing Cross. Mill Hill was in the historic county of Middlesex until 1965, when it became part of Greater London. Its population counted 18, ...

golf course

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

. Her leg was crushed in the crash and had to be amputated although her passenger Hon. Mildred Katherine Leith survived with fewer injuries. O'Brien remained passionate about aviation, writing a number of articles and organising air rallies such as the May 1929 rally in Gleneagles. She continued to fly herself using an artificial leg. She worked on behalf of the

Air League The Air League is an aviation and aerospace non-profit organisation based in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's largest provider of aviation and aerospace scholarships and bursaries. The Air League aims to inspire, enable, and support the next ...

of the British Empire and was one of the two founders of the Aviation Ambulance Association of England. She lived at Earls Court Road in 1931. She was killed in 1931 when her plane crashed on take off at

Hatfield, Hertfordshire Hatfield is a town and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, in the borough of Welwyn Hatfield. It had a population of 29,616 in 2001, and 39,201 at the 2011 Census. The settlement is of Saxon origin. Hatfield House, home of the Marquess of ...

. The plane's co-owner, the explorer Enid Gordon-Gallien, was in the plane and also died in the crash. O'Brien left an estate worth just over £538.

Early life

World War One

Flying

References

Further reading