Sexual assault used as a 'deliberate tactic' in Kerry during Civil War, conference told
By In General Heard Paddy Cumann Na Irritated Mban A Mand Kerry, O’daly, In Kerry Conference Officer Particularly In Was
Sexual assault was deployed as a "deliberate tactic" during the Civil War, a conference in Kerry has heard.
Violence against women on the anti-treaty side ranged from harassment to beatings, head shavings, insults, and sexual assault, with "violently misogynistic attitudes" persisting for decades, according to historian Mary McAuliffe, who was speaking at a centenary conference in Tralee.
"The violence against women in Kerry from the National Army and especially with the arrival of the Dublin guards was brutal, persistent, and continuous," she said.
General Paddy O’Daly, officer in command in Kerry, was particularly irritated by Cumann na mBan.
Several examples were discussed during the conference, including one in Killarney in September 1922, which saw the homes of six republican women raided and notes left saying 'Dispatch carriers beware!’. The six were dragged from their beds, stripped naked and their bodies painted green, according to the report in the .
Later, one of the six, Elizabeth Foley-Dunne wrote how the Free State soldiers had carried out the attack on her as reprisal for carrying dispatches.
O’Daly’s anger and loathing of women boiled over in Kenmare in June 1923 when two sisters, Flossie and Jessie McCarthy, daughters of a respected local doctor, were taken from their beds and flogged. Their hair was covered in thick motor grease to ensure it would fall out.
One account said they had been raped by the three senior officers.
Historian Owen O’Shea outlined how the women and families of the national army also suffered in the aftermath.
"The military archives are replete with the horror stories of the families of soldiers who faced financial, physical and psychological trauma for years and decades afterwards," Mr O’Shea has found.
Among those stories is that of Private Joseph O’Brien, a father of three from the North Wall in Dublin, was the only survivor of the trap mine explosion at Knocknagoshel which claimed the lives of five Free State soldiers on March 6, 1923 and led to the Ballyseedy reprisal the following day.
Both his legs were amputated "four inches below the knee" and he lost most of the sight in his eyes. His impoverished plight was raised in the Dáil.
The family of John Joe Horan, a Free State Army officer from Tralee who died aged 35, became impoverished and moved to Dublin.
In 1975, his widow Kathleen Horan was "living on bread and tea from one end of the year to another". She continued to plead her case until her death on December 6, 1978, the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty which he fought to defend, O’Shea said.