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“IT WAS SO punishing of women, and there was absolutely no room for anyone to make a mistake, maybe live their life a bit differently. It was a really hard country to live in and we were living in it.”
Ireland was a very different place 40 years ago.
In 1979, contraception and abortion were illegal. Divorce was unheard of. It wasn’t a crime for a man to rape his wife.
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC) was founded, to much resistance, in 1979.
Setting up such a service was not an easy task – funding was minimal to non-existent, and women’s rights were in a similar position. One thing not in short supply was judgement, or the influence of the Catholic Church.
Still, a group of women with a vision set out to create a place that would support women who had been raped or sexually assaulted.
Some of the women who helped found the DRCC reminisced about the early days of the centre at a recent conference to mark its 40th anniversary.
Anne O’Donnell, the DRCC’s first director, recalled how the centre was “in a dingy bedsit on Pembroke Street” in the city, complete with mice.
“Just to remind people what we were up against – 1970s Ireland was a really deeply judgemental country with little compassion, particularly for women. In fact, it was a hostile country for women,” O’Donnell said.
She singled out three women in particular to highlight how Ireland treated women and girls in the 1970 and 1980s: Joanne Hayes (of the Kerry Babies case), Ann Lovett (who died at the age of 15 after giving birth) and Eileen Flynn (a teacher who was dismissed in 1982 for living with a married man).
O’Donnell said Ireland was “so punishing of women”, adding: “There was absolutely no room for anyone to make a mistake, maybe live their life a bit differently. “It was a really hard country to live in and we were living in it.”
The women who founded the DRCC were criticised publicly – and privately. Many family members disagreed with the founding of the centre and the parallel push for women’s rights.
“We had families, we had children, we had parents, we had siblings. And what we were saying was considered quite unacceptable to most of them, as well as to almost everyone else. So it was a very difficult time,” O’Donnell said.
‘Hateful atmosphere’
In conversation with O’Donnell and others at the event last month, journalist Susan McKay recalled how the centre’s founders were targeted during the “hateful atmosphere” of the Eighth Amendment campaign in 1982 and 1983.
Campaigners in favour of the amendment – which inserted a subsection into the Irish Constitution equating the life of the mother and the life of the unborn, and would tighten the country’s abortion laws for decades to come – accused the founders of setting up the centre “as an excuse to bring abortion to Ireland”.
The government at the time spent hundreds of thousands of pounds for the pro-amendment campaign, McKay recalled, stating that the DRCC received £5,600 and was told “the government couldn’t afford any more”.
“You’ve got to remember that we did not have contraception, we did not have abortion, we did not have divorce,” Evelyn Conlon, novelist and early DRCC volunteer, said of that time. Conlon, who was also a member of feminist group Irish Women United, recalled how the centre’s work was largely dismissed or made fun of – much like rape itself at the time.
Every time we mentioned the word ‘rape’ we had to deal with a so-called joke. Every time.
“I know that language has changed extraordinarily, and in some ways it’s worse, and more violent … The challenges are different than they were then. But what happened was is you simply could not use the word ‘rape’ without somebody saying ‘I must tell you this joke’,” Conlon said.
She said that over time, following efforts by the centre and others to raise awareness and increase understanding about sexual assault, “people had learned not to do that”. The centre also provided services for sex workers and ran a women’s disco at the Pembroke Bar, downstairs from its office.
“A number of women who were working on the street would come to our disco, because it was one of the only places where they could be safe and secure,” Conlon said.
She noted that many of the debates that were happening at the time, such as the pros and cons of decriminalising sex work but criminalising buying sex, are still happening around the world today.
O’Donnell said the early volunteers persevered because they wanted women who had been sexually assaulted or raped to have access to the same services women in the UK had, where rape crisis centres were well established.
“[We did it] for those women who were suffering alone to have somewhere to go, to have an ear to listen to them,” she said.
The centre was initially solely run by volunteers before it was in a position to employ professional therapists, something she described as “a breakthrough”. Volunteers, as they do to this day, ran the helpline and would support callers as best they could. Some callers would not saying anything at all.
“The environment at the time made it very difficult for people to speak out, and you could see that in the frequency of the silent calls,” O’Donnell noted. She added that some women would “tell you something and then start to minimise it: ‘It didn’t really happen’ or ‘it wasn’t really that bad’.”
“How can you support someone when they’re pulling back from their own truth? But there are plenty of reasons why people do it.”
‘Embarrassed to be from Ireland’
O’Donnell recalled how she and others would be “embarrassed” to be from Ireland when at conferences in the 1970s and 80s.
“I remember women from other European countries who would ask ‘How can women be so badly treated in Ireland?’ They were shocked about all of the things that we didn’t have in Ireland as women – contraception, divorce,” O’Donnell said, noting how women had to protest to even be allowed swim at the Forty Foot.
I hear people sometimes talk with nostalgia for the ’70s and talking with nostalgia for the good old days, and ‘Wasn’t it much better then?’. I don’t think it was better then.
“That was not my memory and it is not the memory probably of a lot of people in this room who were around at that time.” O’Donnell admits that while there is much more work to be done, Ireland is now viewed by some as progressive in terms of women’s rights – particularly since the Eighth Amendment was repealed in 2018.
She recalled how feminist author Margaret Atwood interview recently referred to Ireland as a “beacon of light” amid regressive policies in many other countries.
We are a country that seems to be going slightly in the other direction from all the Trumps and people of his kind, so I do think we need to celebrate the fact that we’ve come a long way. That’s not to say we’re there, there are still a lot of issues to be dealt with.
“But it was comforting that rather than like back in the 1970s – being the country everyone was shocked by, and you would embarrassed as a woman to be coming from a country with so little going on for women – at least we’ve arrived where we have rights for women.”
O’Donnell described the Eighth Amendment being repealed in May 2018 as “unreal”, stating: “I couldn’t stop crying the whole day. Finally, the vast majority of people in Ireland believed in women’s rights and that was a great moment.”
‘More than a service, it’s a mission’
The current CEO of the DRCC, Noeline Blackwell, said she and others are “moved by the vision and the dedication of those who set [the centre] up”.
She paid tribute to those who continued to run it “through hard times – times when society was against it, times when society wouldn’t hear a single word about rape; times when even the inadequate funding that the centre received was cut without adequate regard for those using or delivering the service”.
Blackwell said she believes the centre has survived for 40 years “because it put the human rights and welfare of every person who experienced sexual violence at the heart of what it is”, adding: “It is more than a service, it was and is a mission.
It was that holistic approach that worked – providing urgent support to those harmed by sexual violence, providing incontrovertible evidence and information on the problem, training and educating others, building models of best practice which learned from experience of what had gone before it and anticipated future needs.
Blackwell said that through running the service, DRCC staff and volunteers have “learned that sexual violence descends in many forms and needs many actors to address it”.
She said committed voluntary organisations, non-governmental organisations, and State actors must come together to help end sexual violence and all forms of gender-based violence. Blackwell said the voices of survivors and victims but also be listened to when developing policy and raising awareness.
“It must include those who are impacted by sexual violence, those who’ve experienced it or have had their lives changed by it – be they family members, friends, caregivers, teachers.”
Savi report
Blackwell called on the government to prioritise compiling a new national report on sexual abuse and violence in Ireland. The last Savi report was conducted in 2002.
The government has committed to carrying out new research, but said it could take five years to complete.
“I think everyone needs it now rather than in five years’ time. We in the centre would like to have the information because we’d like a deeper understanding of the trends and the prevalence of sexual violence that could help guide our work in supporting victims,” Blackwell told TheJournal.ie.
But even for the State, if the only information they have is from 2002 then they know nothing about the world we’re living in today, and the prevalence and trends in sexual violence today.
“At the same time, they’re spending money and time and resources, trying to end sexual violence, but they’re doing it without evidence. They’re doing it without the information that they need.
“So it is in the State’s interest as well as in society’s interest to have the information about what is the prevalence, what are the trends, where are people most vulnerable, and how do we actually sort it out for them?”
State funding of €150,000 was made available this year to allow the Central Statistics Office (CSO), which is overseeing the report, to carry out preliminary technical research.
The preparatory phase of the project will include conducting a pilot survey in 2020. The large-scale survey will look in detail at the experience of women and men in Ireland of sexual violence and abuse, with repeat surveys every decade.
“The goal is for an ongoing programme of high quality research in a sensitive and ethical way, to ensure a robust set of data to inform government policy,” Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan recently said in the Dáil.
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Dredging the Shannon, if done in the correct way would solve most of the problems with flooding. A small handful of properties need to bite the bullet and accept demolition of their one-off bungalow bliss and be relocated to higher ground as nearby as possible.
The simple reality is that the volume of a river’s capacity needs to be at the maximum potential to swiftly move these amounts of water to the sea as quickly as possible. Once this has been addressed, we need to seriously look at land management in the western two-thirds of this island.
Long gone are the days of farming on low-yield soils and long gone are the days of cutting away bogs. Bog restoration would provide a natural sponge to hold back large rainfalls and release it slowly, whereas returning low-yield farmland to forestry (deciduous type) would help soak up ground water from soils already saturated for much of the year.
We need a land management agency and a waterways management agency under one roof planning and singing from the same hymn sheet. It can be done, it should be done, it needs to be done.
Otherwise stuff like this will continue to haunt the Shannon area: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CM9ZP-FWoAAS0LX.jpg
@Laois Weather: Just to add to the above piece:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/image-117.png
A picture paints a thousand words.
@Laois Weather: eh, the expert in the article just explained why dredging would be of no benefit – whether it’s done ‘properly’ or not! At best it would move the problem to the people downriver. Dredging is needed on a tiny percent of the length of the Shannon, and it’s more to do with boat navigation than flooding.
@Laois Weather: That being true (bite the bullet) the government should relocate people and reimburse those with land as it was their planning departments that allowed it in the first place. Otherwise people will be ruined.
@Laois Weather: a little bit of hobest civil engineering with whiile lacking the the brown envelopes might do the trick as in. Ask Denmark
@Seamus Mc Nulty: the government doesn’t own or control planning departments, or make county-by-county planning policy.
@Laois Weather: it would solve nothing.
The shannon drops 100 feet from Carrick on shannon to Limerick, and most if that drop consists of four sudden steps at Jamestown, athlon, meelick and parteen. Tge river is essentially actually flat, and dredging it just deepens the channel and creates a hole that immediately fills up with water — it night as well be filled with concrete for all the effect it would have on the flow.
The shannon has a broad floodplain which floods when heavy rain falls on saturated ground. Any developments on flood plains will flood too.
Dredging the shannon is an effective tool for politicians seeking votes; it has worked in that way for as long as I remember. It does nothing for water levels though, you can’t defy gravity or make water flow up hills.
@John Mulligan: absolutely. It’s a flat river and, if you’ll excuse the pun, everything flows from that.
@John Mulligan: while you are right in a way increasing capacity by deepening the channel means less water spills out of the channel. If you pour a litre of water into a pint glass it spils out, if you pour it into a litre jug none spills out. By dredging the shannon you also increase capacity by helping the water thats in it to escape to the sea quicker. The main thing is the water needs to be able to get to the sea and that dredging happens from the sea back up to the source. You would still likely get flooding but it wouldn’t be as high as it is currently
@Brian Burke: Brian you don’t think logic. Dredging should be done by Dutch experts. Dredging can not be done here and there only than is it becoming a problem.
@Laois Weather: “long gone are the days of farming on low yield soils “
You do realise that most of the farmland around the Shannon region is some of the best soil around ? Most of the lands are under limestone . It ain’t Connemara
@Dino: and if you pour a 5 gallon container of water into the jug it spills over. The amount of water in these floods can’t be contained in the main river channel. The only solution is to slow down the water getting into the main river channel
@Dino: the additional capacity achieved by dredging the channel is insignificant in the context of the problem.
@Laois Weather: Sure in the 1960s when there was far less rain, so not a valid comparison.
The headline really says it all , as in it would seem they don’t know their arse from their elbow. So many of these places were never suitable for building homes on in the first place, so how did they get PP? Then you have other homes that have been in the family for generations & being flooded for the first time. Perhaps that’s down to doggie drainage as a result of bad planning.
@Colette Kearns: In the general case, planners often refuse permission, but a word is had with a local TD or councillor, and it is granted. Family land, help the elderly parents, can’t afford a house in town, etc.
@George Salter: remember that Councillors decide planning policy, not planners. The planning system is not there to prevent people making decisions which turn out to be unwise.
It’s hilarious the denial. We’ve had an unprecedented number of storms bringing rain in from the Atlantic on a continuous conveyer belt. This isn’t normal rainfall for Ireland, it’s climate change. It was predicted by climate modelling decades ago. Dredging won’t fix it. Many of these houses are built in areas that have never flooded in the past. It’s exactly the same story in the UK. Blaming and pointing fingers is like Australians blaming policymakers for the forest fires instead of 5 consecutive years of heatwaves caused by climate change. If you want to blame someone, it’s YOUR fault having such a dependency on fossil fuel.
@Paraic: You know more than the experts then?
From: https://www.met.ie/cms/assets/uploads/2020/02/FebRain.pdf (Met Eireann)
“In Met Éireann, basic trend analysis has been performed on a number of high quality rainfall stations over a fifty year period. Some stations show an increase in the frequency of heavy precipitation (>10mm) / very heavy precipitation (>20mm) days over the past decades, however other stations show a decrease, there is large regional variation and occasionally conflicting trends from stations that are geographically relatively close. The fact that rainfall displays such a high degree
of variability, both temporally and spatially makes it difficult to be definitive about trends.”
And from: https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2020/0227/1117988-storms-ireland
“The causes of the high storminess during the Little Ice Age continue to be debated, but one theory is that powerful storms were produced by a strong cooling of the North Atlantic. There are several pieces of evidence supporting this North Atlantic cooling. Records from Iceland show that there was a greater persistence of sea ice around the coastline at this time. There were recurrent collapses of the cod fishery on the Faroe Islands during the Little Ice Age, which is an indication of colder temperatures as cod do not survive in water below 2°C”
I wonder what fossil fuels were burned around 1400AD to cause those storms? The green loons trying to link *every* weather event to Climate Change and slurring people who argue against this as “deniers” is as dishonest as one can be. Climate Change always happened – and to say that humans are 100% responsible for this is pure folly.
The endless list of failed predictions by the Climate Change Alarmists should be enough evidence for people to see through the agenda – apparently not though, 12 voted in TDs shows how gullible the youth are.
@Daniel Dunne: Cherry pick much?
” Human-caused climate change intensifies the heaviest downpours. More than 70% of the planet’s surface is water, and as the world warms, more water evaporates from oceans, lakes, and soils. Every 1°F rise also allows the atmosphere to hold 4% more water vapor. So when weather patterns lead to heavy rain, there is even more moisture available for stronger downpours, increasing the risk and severity of flooding.” I don’t claim to know more than the experts, I just know how to listen to them.
@Paraic: Should we add that to the list of failed predictions?
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions
@Daniel Dunne: I don’t see any specific reference in either of the articles you posted that supports the idea that the increased precipitation we are witnessing is not due to climate change. Basically what you are trying to imply is that variation between rainfall measuring stations = no unusual rainfall happening. Storms thousands of years ago = No climate change now. Really weak arguments. Classic confirmation bias at work in fact.
@Paraic: the climate changes constantly, the reasons for it are whats debatable. In this article alone the “expert” mentions a drough that lasted a decade in Ireland in the 1800s, I guess that was caused by global warming too? I was reading about a pre incan civilisation in south America a couple of weeks ago and it is thought that they were wiped out by floods followed by extended drought back in 1100 or so. I understand your fear and feel sorry for the alarmists running around telling everyone the end is nigh but its not, its just nature. I bet you’re one of the people in a panic over this corona viris too? Some people just like to panic I guess
@Daniel Dunne: If you want to get your facts from a denialist blog, suit yourself. Literally nobody is saying that tabloid newspapers should be treated like peer reviewed research papers. But it’s typical of denialist loons to argue a point that nobody made. Personally, I listen to 100% of climatologists.
@Dino: The “I read about stuff that happened before” argument is more denialist tripe. Don’t you think that climatologists know about climatological events in the past and take them into account? The Shannon basin is very badly flooded, the worst in my living memory and there’s no sign of the rain abating. How does that fit into the “they said stuff would happen but it didn’t” argument? How about “They said there would be more flooding, more forest fires, polar ice melting, rising seas, more intense storms, more heatwave and that’s exactly what we are seeing”?
@Paraic: read my comment again, I never said the climate wasn’t changing, it is and always has. The reasons for it are whats debatable and there is absolutely nothing anyone in Ireland can do to reverse it despite your ridiculous crusade!
@Daniel Dunne: Rubbish you think that burning millions of years of stored carbon oil gas in just 200 years has not changed our climate is utter nonsense.
@Dino: It’s not debatable. The science and debating was done decades ago, it came to the conclusion that man is the cause of the rapid climate change we are witnessing. The science is irrefutable. Only fools will still try to insist something is false that we already know for sure to be true. I mean you’ve got Daniel there asking if I should add the prediction that the Shannon basin will experience more and intense flooding to the “list of failed predictions”. Do you realise how utterly idiotic that is?
What else can you expect when you place an almost 100ft dam across the
the Shannon which then discharges within a couple miles of the sea, the
continued use of the ESB Hydro Station to generate 84 odd Megawatts
on the Shannon is no longer feasible or indeed viable as its output in
respect of the national load demand 4400 Mw, couple this with the systems
design which envisaged 6 turbines with a design flow of 600 Cm/s of which
only four were installed, yet the storage or design was not adjusted to
take account of the reduced discharge at 400 Cm/s, there is also the
issue of giving of permission almost in secret to the ESB in the mid 70′s
to further raise levels at the time of the Oil Crisis, how much has this
contributed to flooding, is the Shannon system and other Hydro Stations
being used as a spinning reserve to deal with wind generation flucuations
and for peaking morning and evening, the time has come to take the ESB
and the ir 95% shareholder the Government and never mind all this nonsense
about flood barriers
I think the problem is far bigger than the dam ~ @Clonagh Ri:
@Clonagh Ri: the dam has no impact on the shannon floodplain. If you looked at the river profile in detail you would see the height of the dam relative to the flooded areas. If it was an issue, the water would be twenty to thirty feet over the top of the dam.
The problem is that the channel between ree and derg can’t take the flood because it’s too flat. Tge water can only go sideways after heavy rain, across the flood plain.
The dam is an easy target for simplistic answers, but it isn’t the problem.
@Clonagh Ri: should be pulled down like other dams accross Europe as it is a barrier to fish migration.
Our salmon, eels and lampreys were nearly wipes out.
Castleconnel was the greatest salmon fishery in the world at one time
@Ciarán FitzGerald: but no impact on flooding
@John Mulligan: The system is dammed incrementally from Lough
Allen to Parteen and water is released in stages from one holding
basin to the next ,what is held back at the various basins as far as
Jamestown weir cannot be released until each stage is spilled and
released until it eventually reaches the Parteen Dam, from the late
1920′s and into the 30′s the ESB were given Statutory Authority by
Act and Statutory Order/Instrument to raise water levels and impuond
it, there is also an additional Instrument made in the Mid 70′s further
raising levels in response to ’73 Oil Crisis, all level raising has to be
referenced to the historic levels pertaining at the commencement of
the Shannon Navigation Works in the 1840′s, you simplistic assertion
that the Pateen Dam would have to be at the same level as the Jamestown Sluice is somewhat ridiculous, when in fact the system
is controlled in stages, as it stands the entire original project has
now to reassessed in light of current energy requirements,which
is of today 4400 Mw of which Ardnacrusha is just under 84 Mw, all
those affected need to take a class action against the Government
and the ESB for damages, what other Nation would allow one of
its largest rivers to put lives and property at risk for a project that
did fulfill an energy requirement initially but is longer feasible or
viable under the current conditions
In the 1600s they brought in a Dutch man to deal with a major problem on the Ouse and he supervised the construction of what’s known as the Ouse Wash.
Sometimes its best to look for a known expert in the field and the Dutch have all the people we need.
What we don’t have is the willingness of some State agencies to surrender their patch and maybe dont have the willingness of politicians to provide .the money.
Totally incorrect ~~ Dredging on a schedule would enable the the engineering and flood specialists to mitigate flooding in many areas ~~ Dredging must be a constant not an emergency operation ~~ Planting trees and flooding bogs would also be pertinent ~~ Stopping greedy politicians egos might help ~ Maybe !
@JP Pilibin: Don’t build houses beside/on flood plains!
@JP Pilibin:
If you “mitigate” flooding in one area, you create or exaserbate flooding in another. The dredging campaign is misinformed nonsense, the Healy Raes are behind it, that should be warning enough.
There’s a simple solution:
STOP BUILDING HOUSES ON FLOOD PLANES
jesus, use floodplanes to plant forests or something, not ever scrap of land needs to be developed, the population is sparse enough as it is.
That headline is totally wrong, Dr Mary Burke was on the Pat Kenny show yesterday and stated that dredging is not the solution in any form for the Shannon.
@Frank Carty: we had her visit us inishowen in the wake of the 2017 floods. She is an excellent authority figure on the issue of flooding and natural flood mamagment
If you build houses on a flood plane, expect floods.
If you take measures to stop flooding in a flood plane, you create flooding somewhere else.
Feel bad for the suckers who bough houses on a flood plane not knowing any better, but they should direct their anger at the local gombeens who allowed houses to be built on a flood plane, not “dem ‘uns up in Dublin ignoring us”.
Some of these flood planes are on maps from the middle ages, we have a serious problem with planning in Ireland where local gombeens have too much power, and civil engineers have too little.
All talk and excuses as usual. We should have thousands of years data on Ireland biggest river maybe even ask the locals instead of downloading data sets. The plan seems to be protect towns and industry with peace meal defences. Identify farmland to flood and refuse to dredge because some plants and tiny aminals may loose their home. Blocking rivers that feed into the Shannon further up so more farmland can flood.
Dredging will bring more activity maybe jobs. Build up banks to plant trees.
You would swear that councils along the Shannon are more interested in using it to dispose of human sewage than listening and acting on locals concern. Rural Ireland forgotton while Dublin gets a metro line.
Dredging the Shannon it brings back memories of years gone by it was always a big topic in the daily and more recently when it was mooted that some of the water would be piped to Dublin there was uproar how times have changed
@Sean Doheny: It’s not in constant flood you have to realise…the river can get very low in the summer months especially in a drought. Navigation gets very difficult.
have your say