Ireland’s Greatest Woman Inventor finalist – Lilian Bland, the ‘flying feminist’

Lilian Bland was a woman before her time – a photographer, markswoman, martial artist, sports journalist, wearer of dungarees and a smoker – and no stranger to raising the eyebrows of those around her. Most notably, however, she became the first woman in Ireland to build and fly an aircraft, and quite possibly world’s first woman to build her own airplane.