Two violent assaults on women, a slap on the wrist for the soldiers — 100 years apart
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Over a century ago, on September 3, 1923, a young woman, 22-year-old Hanna O’Connor, of Glenbeigh, Co Kerry, was returning from a night out. She and her friends had enjoyed music and dancing and were walking the four miles home when they happened to meet a group of Free State soldiers, one of whom was Lieutenant John Hunter.
The young women and the soldiers were engaged in conversation when a shot rang out striking Hanna in the abdomen, and she collapsed into the arms of one of her friends. She died of her wounds two days later, before which she gave a statement to the Civic Guards. As the young women spoke and joked with the soldiers, she said she responded to one who asked if they were ‘Free State girls’, that she was, in fact, a ‘die hard’, that is, a supporter of the anti-Treaty side.
She said once she admitted to being a die-hard, the soldier next to her fired his revolver, and she was about "to die" because of that shot, a shot fired simply because she was a woman with a voice and an opinion.
Lieutenant John Hunter was arrested and charged with murder initially, but this was changed to manslaughter, to which he pleaded guilty. He expressed regret but said he did not know the gun was loaded when he pointed it at Hanna O’Connor. The prosecution argued that Hunter, as an officer, should have been aware that his gun was loaded, and he should not have taken it out and pointed it at a young woman in the first place.
The fact that O’Connor had said she was a ‘die hard’ to a National Army soldier was dismissed as "mere cant" and not relevant to Hunter’s actions. This, despite the long litany of physical, gendered and sexual violence committed by the National Army on anti-Treaty women during the Civil War.
Mr Justice Ernest Pim did acknowledge that Hunter had committed a very serious crime, but his guilty plea and his expressions of sorrow at the death of O’Connor were taken into consideration and he was spared a custodial sentence, being bound to the peace for three years. According to the judge, the main learning was that an officer of the army should not be so negligent in handling firearms.
Almost a century later, in May 2022, a young woman of a similar age to O’Connor, Natasha O’Brien, was walking home from work one evening, when she also encountered a soldier, Private Cathal Crotty, of the Irish Defence Forces, the successor body to the National Army. Crotty responded to requests from O’Brien to stop shouting homophobic slurs at a man on the street by attacking and viciously assaulting her.
He brutally battered her, bruised her body, broke her nose, and inflicted such severe concussion that it was feared she could have a brain bleed. This vicious assault, which she thought might end in her death, has led to panic attacks and nightmares. She has also suffered from recurring PTSD and, as a result, lost her job.
When the case came to court, the judge in this instance, Mr Justice Tom O’Donnell, accepted Crotty’s belated guilty plea, acknowledged the viciousness of the attack and its long-term and ongoing impact on O’Brien and proceeded to hand down a three-year fully suspended sentence on the violent perpetrator.
One hundred years separate these violent assaults on women by members of the armed forces in Ireland, yet the judgements remain the same — a slap on the wrist and a suspended sentence for the guilty party. Over the intervening century, we have seen campaigns which highlighted the inadequacy of the laws on violence against women including domestic violence, coercive control, physical assaults, sexual assault and rape.
We have also had campaigns which highlight misogyny and homophobia, both in society and in the workplace, including in the armed forces, as the Women of Honour support group, which campaigns for women who have suffered physical and sexual abuse in the Defence Forces, has revealed.
All of these campaigns have led to changes in the law, in policy, in equality legislation, in training, and in sentencing. Sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and violence against women are, now, viewed in law and in society as unacceptable and illegal.
The message, loud and clear, is that these campaigns and changes have not come close to fully transforming what remains a violent, misogynistic patriarchy.
The judiciary, the army and the legal system are among the many male-dominated arenas which need to reflect on their responses to men’s violence. Private Crotty’s proud boast about the assault on his Snapchat account — ‘Two to put her down, two to put her out’ — should echo long and hard in the judiciary and among the armed forces.
No woman should experience such deficient, shoddy and distinctly gendered (in)justice in a courtroom again.
- Dr Mary McAuliffe is a historian and lecturer in Gender Studies at UCD