Irish Naval Service as a permanent component of the Irish Defence Forces. The Naval Service purchased three s from the United Kingdom in 1946 and 1947. The tradition of naming Irish Naval Ships after figures in Celtic Mythology began, and the ships were named , and . These three ships were to become a key part of the Naval Service in the 1950s and 1960s. The first formal training of Irish naval cadets took place at the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, UK in 1947. In 1970, "Cliona" and "Macha" were withdrawn from service and scrapped, leaving "Maev" as the sole ship in
Royal Naval Engineering College Royal Naval Engineering College The Royal Naval Engineering College was a specialist establishment for the training of Royal Navy engineers. It was founded as Keyham College in 1880, new buildings were opened in Manadon in 1940 and the old college site at Keyham closed in 1958. The college was renamed HMS "Thunderer" in 1946, and closed in 1995. Construction of Keyham College on the dockside in the Keyham suburb of Plymouth started in February 1879, at a cost of £30,000 and opened in July 1880 as Training Schools for Engineer Students, replacing the hulk of HMS "Marlborough" which had been