Shane Dunphy: The all-too-modern version of big bad wolf in the woods
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Ten days ago, Larry Murphy's name was known by only a small few, but as his release date approached the furore over his release became a cause celebre in the Irish annals of violent sexual crime.
But then, it is easy to react to individuals like him in such a blase fashion when they are safely locked away.
Since his release from Arbour Hill on Thursday, Murphy has become famous in the worst sort of way: he is notorious.
Mention of his name evokes fear, anger and disgust. The media has spent huge amounts of column inches rehashing what this predator has done (not to mention what he might have done), and suggesting that he should be immediately locked up again.
There are, to be fair, real concerns over the fact that, during his prison time, he received no treatment at all to counter his sexual proclivities. There are issues about the lack of availability of round-the-clock garda surveillance.
The police have admitted that they wish to speak to our newest celebrity about his possible involvement in several other crimes, which adds a real frisson of danger that we may be dealing with a serial offender.
Yet the relevant officials in both the government and judiciary have said firmly that under the present guidelines a prisoner's sentence cannot be extended, and the fact that Murphy served only 10 out of his 15-year sentence is fully in keeping with the current system.
Such answers have, understandably, done nothing to staunch the fear and dissatisfaction. Larry Murphy has, in a very real way, triggered a fear response deep in the consciousness of the Irish public.
Perhaps it is something visceral, something about the monster hiding in the woods. There is a theory in sociology which suggests that we all have a sort of inbuilt programming, a set of innate reactions we do not have to learn from our parents as they are hardwired into our central nervous system.
Such responses stem from the period of human history when we lived in caves and in the wild, where a simple night-time stroll could easily have resulted in any of us ending up in the belly of a sabre-toothed tiger.
People are automatically afraid of wolves, snakes, spiders, lions. Our modern society, which immerses us in images of all kinds of horrors via TV and computer monitors has, in a safe way, dampened these fright responses, but they are still there if you look a little under the surface: no one really likes a spider, if they are honest about it.
In those primeval days, we lived with the threat of predators every day, and we had to be very, very careful. The fairytales and folk stories we told our children were designed to teach them to stay safe from these hazards in the simplest way possible: do not stray from the path into the woods, because a wolf may get you. In prehistory, when these stories first emerged, wolves really were waiting in the shadows of those trees.
In the age of the information superhighway, of mobile phones and cans of mace, the world has become a brighter, noisier place. The woods are mostly gone, and so are the wolves, but the monsters are not, and they know where the few patches of dense trees can be found.
Larry Murphy is our modern equivalent of the wolf -- ask the then-28-year-old woman he repeatedly raped and then tried to murder just how dangerous he is.
The kind of furore that has emerged since Murphy's release is a pure, gut-level reaction to the reality that a monster has been freed, one whose claws are still sharp, and who has done nothing to show that he even feels any remorse.
SEX offenders are a part of that inner library of horrors which seem to set off alarm bells in us. Rape is the lowest form of human debasement, an action which trawls the depths of the human spirit.
For any parent, the thought of someone sexually molesting their child is the most appalling nightmare they can imagine, and victims of child sexual abuse can spend years putting their lives back together. Women who have been raped speak of the very essence of themselves being violated. Men who have suffered sexual attacks (it can and does happen) can be utterly bereft.
What is truly frightening about such predators, what seems to unnerve people the most, is that the monsters often do not look like deviants at all. Larry Murphy, if you did not know what he was, could probably be quite handsome.
How can we be careful when the wolf has dressed up as Lassie?
The simple answer is that we must be as careful as we can be. The advice we give our children: do not talk to strangers, do not walk out after dark alone, do not pause when approached by cars or vans we do not know -- these precautions are as likely to keep any of us, male or female, safe as they are our younger citizens.
Larry Murphy is free. There is nothing we can do about that, other than be vigilant.
Shane Dunphy is a sociologist and author
- Shane Dunphy
Irish Independent
