Last month abuse survivor Aoife Farrelly spoke on the steps of Dublin’s Central Criminal Court telling reporters, “today is the start of the rest of my life.”
Earlier that day, her older brother, Cian Farrelly of Kells Road, Oldcastle, Co Meath, was jailed for three years for sexually abusing her as a child.
Farrelly received a 4½-year sentence, with the final 18 months suspended on a number of conditions, including that he have no contact of any kind with his sister.
“I always said that three to five [years] was enough, anything over five was a bonus,” she tells Roisin Ingle, on the latest episode of The Irish Times Women’s Podcast.
The abuse started in 2007, when Aoife was just six years old. It lasted for two years and stopped when she told her parents what was happening.
“Up until that point I was a very very happy child…once the abuse started, I detached myself from everything,” she says.
By waiving her anonymity, Aoife hopes to finally start healing and moving on with her life.
“I’m able to slowly start to move on now and that’s what I hope I can do for the rest of my life, not let it define me anymore and just keep going,” she says.
More than four weeks on from that day outside the Central Criminal Court she says, “I just feel like a new woman completely.”
