Listowel: a town and a people that showed great kindness to my father
The myth of the case which has shocked the nation is that it is one town's fault, says Eamon Keane
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THE Garda light caught her broken body, the bruises emerging like a newly formed stain. Naked from the waist down and rendered senseless in a rubbish skip. Out of it, but she knew some darkness had been visited upon her.
She does remember Danny. Danny, the 35-year-old bouncer, whom she had known for years. Danny, who was seen on CCTV footage carrying her to the skip. Danny, who was convicted of sexually assaulting her. Danny Foley, who will spend the next five years in prison.
She does remember the 50 or so men who walked into a court in Tralee to shake Danny Foley's hand. She remembers watching this after the sentence was handed down. The memories come uninvited now. Unannounced in nightmares, in flashbacks and in the everyday living of life. A plume of fear twisting in and hovering over mind, body and soul. She will always remember from now on.
This is a story that challenges you and me. We look
for devil and angel. We look for scapegoats. We look for certainty. We look to bury, we look to rationalise. And we find comfort in our myths. I believe the 50 men will not face the fact that there exists capacity for evil in all men. I believe that many women cannot face the vulnerability and cruelty of life, of what can happen to them too. And so we construct and find comfort in our myths.
The myths that this is one town's fault. Listowel is a town I love. A town that has been good to me. A town and a people that showed great kindness to my father as he battled his personal and physical demons. How handy that we can narrow and place badness in one little town.
The psychotherapist and writer M Scott Peck defined evil as wilful ignorance. Those 50 who did go to court believed they had to show solidarity. Believed that their man was right. Believed that that woman was wrong. Our man just couldn't do this, could he? To agree with the finding of the judge and jurors, well that's admitting that from among their ranks was someone capable of darkness. Our man-made myths include the belief that women who are drunk are asking for it. The skirt, the way she was falling around. In this case the judge and jury were categorical; a sexual assault had taken place. The defendant had changed his initial story and the judge found his comments on the victim to be odious. There are women who also see women in that light. Why? Better to see that than to face the fact that they too could be assaulted.
Some radio callers backed this man. Is there something about men in those parts, are city folk more sophisticated?
But again I ask: what about the communities who watched children emerge from slave camps run by the Catholic Church? You see, the 50 are a part of you and me. A part we hope we don't have to face. We can blame it on a town and explain it away. Words are easy. It is the geography of the soul and the mind that is important. The terrain of Irish men.
And so to the hero in this, the victim. Judith Herman in her seminal book Trauma and Recovery stresses that the focus for survivors of a sexual assault is first to establish safety. Then the survivor must reconstruct the story. But the ultimate task is to restore the connection between the survivor and the community. This brave woman and her counsellor have begun that task. We owe her our goodwill. We owe her our collective handshake.
We owe her that part of ourselves which strives for and seeks the good.
Let's begin now.
- Eamon Keane
Originally published in
