Nuala says ‘I had to get through it on my own. And I did. And I feel proud for that’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Nuala says she received no help or support from people who should have looked after her after she was sexually abused.
She feels proud that she has survived her traumatic childhood experiences.
Nuala grew up in the 1950s and 60s, in a large Catholic family.
Her father often worked away from home and Nuala and her siblings were placed in care a couple of times, when their mother was hospitalised with mental health issues.
Nuala describes her father as ‘a charmer … when he was in the pub, everybody loved him’.
However, he sexually abused Nuala over several months. She remembers incidents of abuse occurring when she was nine years old, but thinks it may have happened before this.
She remembers that one day when her mother was out, her father called her to his room and sexually abused her. She says ‘I was shocked. I didn’t really know what to think’.
Over the following few months, Nula’s father sexually abused her whenever her mother was out of the house. The abuse escalated to rape.
Nuala went to confession and was heard by a priest, Father Keith. She told him about the abuse she was suffering but she does not remember him giving her any advice. She remembers thinking ‘Well, now what?’
At the Catholic school she attended, Nuala’s behaviour changed, and because of this she was sent to the headteacher who was a nun called Sister Teresa.
Sister Teresa commented that Nuala’s behaviour was out of character, and this prompted Nuala to tell the nun what was happening to her. She remembers that Sister Teresa’s response was not warm or sympathetic – she took Nuala to Father Keith’s office and both of them questioned Nuala about her allegations, and asked if she had told her mother.
Nuala said she had not. She was taken back to her classroom and no further action was taken by either adult.
Nuala’s mother would often complain about her husband’s drinking, and Nuala would sometimes mutter under her breath ‘He’s worse than you think’. One day her mother heard this and asked what she meant. Nuala told her mother about the abuse; her mother believed her and reported it to the police. The police took a statement from Nuala, and her father stopped coming to the family home.
Her father denied the allegations, which meant that Nuala had to go to court. At the age of nine, she had to give evidence in full view of her father.
Her father was found guilty and sentenced to prison, though it was not for very long as Nuala remembers he was released while she was still at primary school. None of the staff at school ever spoke to her about the abuse.
When Nuala was 12, her mother told her that her father had ‘changed his ways’ and would be coming back to live with them. He was verbally abusive and acted aggressively towards his family. Nuala says he did not sexually abuse her again, but she felt very ‘on edge’ that he might.
After an incident when Nuala’s father was physically violent to her in public, she went to see her social worker and asked to be taken into care, but was told she had to stay with her family.
Later, the social worker told her father what Nuala had requested. Her father became visibly upset and social services took no further action. Nuala says ‘They let him get away with that’. She remembers feeling powerless, and that she had no choice but to stay.
When she was a teenager, Nuala remembers her father trying to use the abuse as a form of blackmail, threatening to tell her boyfriend about it.
At the age of 16, Nuala left home and went to live in a hostel. She later found out that her father had also abused one of her siblings.
Nuala recalls needing dental treatment because she ground her teeth incessantly. She has been troubled with recurring disturbing dreams, and feelings of guilt that her sibling was also sexually abused. She became involved in ‘complicated’ relationships with men who took advantage of her.
She describes ‘feeling nothing’ at her parents’ funerals and this upsets her.
Nuala feels let down by people in authority who should have protected her. She says ‘The attitude from the school and social services, the absolute lack of help … I had to get through it on my own. And I did. And I feel proud for that’.
She would like institutions to take notice of and listen to children. ‘Don’t leave them to do it themselves, like I did. That was just the worst thing.’
Nuala is glad that victims and survivors can now give evidence in court without having to face the perpetrator directly, but believes courts should ‘give them long enough sentences so that they don’t come back home’.
So far, Nuala has never accessed any support services and has not spoken to anyone outside her family about the abuse. She hopes that sharing her experience with the Truth Project will be of help to others.
Nuala is now married to a man who is kind and caring towards her. But she says ‘I still weep for what I’ve lost or what I didn’t have – a father’.
She wonders ‘Could he have loved me if he used me like that? I don’t know’.