Mary Kenny
Growing up in Dublin in the 1950s and 60s, I never heard the word ‘rape’. That is not to deny the reality of sexual assault – we know that it can occur in all societies. But the older women in my family, and the various teachers, neighbours and friends with whom I came in contact never expressed, or hinted at, any fear of rape or sexual assault.
As a teenager, I wandered around Dublin at will, often walking, or bicycling, back home to Sandymount at any old hour I pleased.
It was not until I went to France as an 18-year-old that I was introduced to the concept of rape. The woman-of-the-house, where I was an au pair, obsessively warned me against this crime. I can hear her anxious words now: “Mademoiselle, vous serez violée!” she said, if I ambled in late at night.
My independent-minded exploration of Paris and its suburbs were met with the same warning – I would be ‘violated’. I had to look up the word in the dictionary to grasp what it meant. I thought my hosts were fussing – I couldn’t understand why I shouldn’t move around with the same freedom in France as I had done in Ireland.
Following what is now known as ‘the Belfast rape trial’ – when the Ulster and Ireland rugby players were acquitted of the crime – there has, of course, been a storm of protest by women, and some men too, throughout the country. Twitter was awash with anger against the verdict, prompted by the hashtag ‘I believe her’ – referring to the anonymous complainant in the trial.
Witness
It was striking that people in the 26 counties were responding as though this trial – which the witness Dara Florence said was horrible for everyone – occurred under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Ireland. A common cry on Twitter was “this is what it’s like being a woman in Ireland!” Some of the British media which reported the crowd response wrote about it as though it was ‘Ireland’s’ fault that a woman had been put through this legal ordeal.
Although lawyers have tried to explain that the procedure would have been differently conducted if it had taken place in the Republic (names of the accused would not have been disclosed, and the attendant publicity would not have occurred), this point has been virtually ignored. The narrative that this distressing event was somehow typical of Ireland’s treatment of women continued. The politicians are responding similarly.
And the Catholic church wasn’t far from the frame either. A woman artist put up on Twitter a mocking composition of a Eucharist host carrying the slogan “these are our bodies which have been given up for you – Mná na hÉireann”, with signals of ‘rape’, ‘silence’ ‘victim blaming’, ‘forced births’ ‘Eighth Amendment’ and ‘Tuam babies’.
Was the anger over the Belfast trial a proxy for something else?
Another point. In a state – Northern Ireland – which has a tradition of sectarian division, and in which the first fact often known about an individual is their religious background, not once was it mentioned whether the accused, Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding, were Catholics or Protestants. But whatever their denominational background, the Catholic church seems to be taking the blame for this whole distressing and unedifying event.
Analysis taken just a bit too far
It’s the fashion, at the moment, to get your DNA analysed, through commercial companies which offer to examine details of your ancestry through such tests, carried out by post. People have discovered all sorts of strange and wonderful elements of their distant heritage – one friend found that among the usual cocktail of genes common in Ireland there was, way back, a drop of Nigerian DNA.
There is a legend that North African – maybe Libyan – pirates plundered the south coast of Ireland around the 16th Century, and they may well have left some of their genes behind. Some wags have even suggested that ‘Gadaffi’ may be a corruption of ‘O’Duffy’.
It’s mostly harmless fun, but Christianity has never encouraged ancestor-worship. We are not just our genes. We are not our ancestors. The Christian (and scientific) view is that each of us is a unique individual, and while the ancestry may be fascinating, we are irreplaceably ourselves.