WHEN Mary was nine her family moved from Galway city to a small, tightly knit country community in another county. She went from an allgirls' school into a small national school with boys and girls.

Now in her thirties, she still recalls the taunting, name calling, kicking, poking in the back, hair pulling and tripping that she endured each day for about a year. She never told her family how bad it was.

"I was new and I was the only girl who walked home in a certain direction. The boys used to call me names and throw stones at me. It went on for about a year then it fizzled out. It was always a few of them together. They were cowardly about it.

"When the teacher turned his back, they'd give me a poke. Coming home I used to be really nervous that they'd catch me.

"I used to bottle it all up. I'd go quiet. I was just upset that they were picking on me. I couldn't understand why. There was nothing different about me. I just wanted to fit in. I had never done anything out of the way to attract attention.

"I didn't want my mother or father to make an issue of it. I knew if I told them about it that it would only make it worse. They couldn't mind me five hours a day at school.

"It probably made me a bit insecure. I wouldn't be full of confidence anyway. Like moving schools, it was one of the things along the way that made me a little bit nervous and, in trying to get on top of that I was often fool hardy and tried to brave it out."