Female biker told class was ‘men only’

A WOMAN biker was sent to the back of the class when she tried to enrol in a course to help her repair her powerful Honda machine.

Lorna O’Connor, from Corbally, claims that when she applied to St Mary’s Adult Education Training Centre in Limerick city for the motorbike engineering course, she was told it was a came under the ‘Project with Men’ category.

She said: “I was more or less told that it would be alright to watch from the back of the class.

“I was informed that the majority of adult education classes offered are attended by women and it was decided to designate two for men only.”

Lorna rides a Honda Hornet 250 to work and has travelled on it to motorbike events in the Isle of Man, Holland and Wales.

“I’m really keen to take this (engineering) class and I know lots of girl bikers who belong to the Irish Women’s Bike Club, who would also be keen to enrol.”

Mary Donnelly of St Mary’s said the list for the motorbike classes was full and they had 45 applications for 15 places.

She said: “With the funding available, we can only offer classes for three weeks in this session, and have put in for an allocation of additional hours. However, if someone drops out, we can certainly bring Lorna in.”

Ms Donnelly said they promote gender balance in their courses.

She added: “We have a predominantly female attendance at our classes and recently I asked women in a sewing class if they would be comfortable with two men joining them as they are men from another culture where sewing is not out of place for men.”