Noeleen Hale

Noeleen Hale (born circa 1964) was a female member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who received worldwide attention (particularly throughout the British Isles) for her actions during a riot in the Ardoyne section of Belfast in 2001.

A Roman Catholic from Toomebridge, Northern Ireland, her service in the RUC estranged her from her family. She "made peace with her mother ... shortly before she died", however she remains estranged from her siblings since she joined the RUC in 1987. “I am a Catholic from Toomebridge who lost complete touch with my family when I chose to join the police,” she said. “Perhaps I was being naive but I did not realise how angrily they would react. They just cut me off like that.” Her father died when she was 11 years old.

In a photograph flashed around the world, Hale was seen cradling a wounded colleague. The RUC colleague, a sergeant, had been hit with a metal clamp normally used to secure car steering wheels against thieves and was seriously wounded. Hale had no helmet on because it had been smashed when a republican rioter hit her with a piece of paving stone. She was also subjected to verbal abuse. “Not all of it is repeatable”, she said at the time. “Usually it is about how many of the men in the unit you are supposed to have had sex with and what particular sexual things the rioters would like to do to you, and where and how.”

She was a member of the RUC's Mobile Support Unit (MSUs), anti-riot squads called in to tackle major disturbances.

She is married to a British soldier from Wales whom she met while on riot duty in Belfast.

External links

* [http://www.highbeam.com/ref/doc0.asp?docid=1O999:gentlewoman "News Letter" article] (subscription required)