A woman who was raped in Galway in July 2019 has said that she “lost five years” of her life waiting for the case to come to trial.
A jury found Jonathan Moran, from Tower View, Mullingar in Co Westmeath, guilty of the charge and he was jailed for eight years on Monday.
The 26-year-old used a bottle to carry out the attack in a garden shed after meeting Bláthnaid Raleigh while she was attending the Galway Arts Festival.
Ms Raleigh, who is also from Mullingar, said that, in the aftermath of the attack, she used words like “incident” or “assault” to describe what happened to her as she never felt she had the right to say “I was raped”.
She said that she did not want to confront what happened, but when the verdict came, she said she could finally say “I was raped”.
‘For victims of sexual violence, control is a massive thing, and that control being taken away from you, it’s not a nice place to be’
Speaking on RTÉ’s Oliver Callen show, Ms Raleigh said: “I lost five years of my life waiting for a trial and sharing my home town with somebody who had done this”.
She was 21 when she made the initial report to gardaí, but the case did not come to trial until she was 26.
She lost sleep or had nightmares, she said, as a number of different trial dates drew closer, but they would be pushed back.
“I don’t think these people pushing back the date, it felt like nobody ever saw the other person on the other side of this, how much their life was being affected by every time it was pushed out.
“It’d be shattering all over again, and you’d have to pick yourself up and get yourself going again and then, the same thing would happen again.
“You feel very much at the hands of somebody else, like a puppet on a string and somebody else is controlling your life.
“For victims of sexual violence, control is a massive thing, and that control being taken away from you, it’s not a nice place to be,” Ms Raleigh said.
In the immediate aftermath of the rape, she said, she was a shell of a person.
“I would spend most of my days just staring into space, just couldn’t really function.”
Ms Raleigh said that she did not go out as there were things that could trigger a response or memory and she felt repulsed.
She was dull, she said, had no motivation, was riddled with fear and did not have any interest in the things that she used to be interested in.
Ms Raleigh said that she forced herself to go out, and went to a pub, but had to keep her back to the wall so she could see everyone there in case Moran came in.
“It got to a stage where I’d be watching everyone else and I’d be so anxious that something was going to happen to somebody else. I just couldn’t relax.
“I was watching every guy talking to a girl, every girl leaving the pub on her own, every girl getting into a taxi on her own, and I was petrified that something was going to happen that I could have stopped, which is a lot of pressure to put on yourself for a night out.”
Ms Raleigh said that, before he raped her, Moran had been chatty and friendly, and in no way flirty to her, but afterwards his whole personality was different.
She described having to give evidence in court as “horrific” and “retraumatising”, adding that “it was just insulting the lies he told”.
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Before the trial, Ms Raleigh said, part of her felt sorry for Moran and his family at the thought of him going to prison.
“Afterwards, when I got no reason for what had happened, no apology, nothing, I thought, why am I caring so much about his family, because he hasn’t cared about my family, me or his own family in his actions. His actions have caused this”.
While waiting for the case to come to trial, she said, it was difficult knowing what Moran did when the rest of the community did not know and were celebrating his achievements with the local rugby club.
“You’re left in this rubble and he’s just keeping this perfect picture for everyone else to see.”
She said that her brother left the rugby club and moved to a neighbouring one, adding that he had to play against Moran in a recent match.
Read more:
Important to have rapist’s face ‘out there’, says victim
Ms Raleigh said that she waved her anonymity so others in a similar situation would not feel alone and the Rape Crisis Centre gave her great support through counselling.
“I would encourage anybody who needs their services to contact them, they are excellent,” she said, adding that she has launched a fundraiser for the organisation.
She said she did not want to take away from anyone else’s pain, as they are living with their own experience – whether their perpetrator was convicted or not – and would like to be a voice, if she can, for these people.
‘These things are horrific and they take so much away from you, but you really discover who you are as a person’
Now, Ms Raleigh enjoys the gym, boxing and being around horses, which she finds therapeutic, and is hoping to study for a masters degree in child and family health and wellbeing, or in social work.
However, despite being in a better place, she said, there are triggers that can knock you for a few days and the court process triggered her massively.
She described not being able to sleep, showering being difficult and never feeling clean.
“I go through phases where … I scratch my skin. I’ll be so unaware of it until I get up and I’m covered in bruises. But then I have really good times.”
“These things are horrific and they take so much away from you, but you really discover who you are as a person, your strengths … and you prioritise what you are good at and what you enjoy.
“I don’t get as caught up in ‘I want to do this and travel here and get this’ … I don’t feel like that because I’ve been in situations where I’ve been so unhappy that I just want the bare basic happiness, and I’m just going to do whatever I can to just keep me very level and do the things I enjoy.”
Ms Raleigh said she feels that she has her life back, is going out again, and doing things that young people enjoy, even in her own locality.
“I don’t live in that immediate fear of seeing him. Hopefully, I can get lots of other bits in my life back now”.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this report, helplines can be found here
