Irish women are condemned to a terrifying sentence

Published: Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Last weekend, I found myself surrounded by some of my closest female friends. It was the usual crowd, give or take, but certainly not the usual laughter-filled experience.

What started as a light-hearted evening, the hostess kicking off our own little version of the TV show Come Dine With Me, very soon turned into a serious discussion.

It was perhaps the most serious we have ever really been with one another, despite all we have been through together.

The subject that exercised such morbid fascination among us was Larry Murphy, and the atmosphere turned to fear, panic and helplessness.

Growing up, as "women of the millennium", we were taught never to feel inadequate, always secure that men and women were equal, and having that notion constantly affirmed by the many good men we have been fortunate to know -- friends, lovers, brothers, uncles, daddies.

But with age comes the realisation that some men you meet in life want to hurt you, precisely because you are a woman, and because they can, and it is a steep learning curve.

As we spoke, interrupted only by the odd gasp or shiver, it transpired that all present were fortunate enough to have had only minor scares with such reprehensible individuals.

Some had been grabbed by strange men, but managed to get away, others had been chased, threatened with a blade, harassed, flashed or groped.

The Carlow businesswoman, who was taken into the Dublin Mountains by Larry Murphy over a decade ago and repeatedly raped and beaten, was not as lucky.

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