A woman has told the Central Criminal Court that she was raped by her grandfather twice when she was around nine and ten years old.
The woman, who is giving her evidence via video link, is one of four people who allege they were raped and sexually assaulted as children, by members of their extended family between 1999 and 2005.
The complainants were aged between seven and 18 at the time.
Four men – three sons and their father, aged 37, 40, 41 and 66 are on trial charged with more than 100 offences, mainly sexual assault and rape.
The younger men's mother, 63, is also on trial, charged with assisting an offender and with assaulting two of the complainants.
The defendants are the grandparents, aunt, mother, uncles, cousins and brothers of the complainants. They have all pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Warning: Some readers may find details in this report distressing
Prosecuting counsel Shane Costello told the jurors yesterday that the accused and the complainants were all part of the same extended family who were members of the Travelling community.
He said each of the two men and two women alleged they had been abused in a sexual manner by some of the accused. He warned the jury to approach the case in a dispassionate way even though they were likely to hear graphic and unsavoury evidence.
The first complainant to give evidence, is now 30 years old. She described how she would stay with her grandparents in various locations around Ireland during school holidays.
On one occasion, she said she was in a field in the west of the country looking at horses, when her grandfather - the oldest of the accused men - followed her down in his car.
She became very upset as she told the court he called her over to the car and then put her lying down on the back seat where he raped her. She said he had his hand on her back to stop her getting up.
'Unbelievable pain'
She described feeling "unbelievable pain", like someone sticking a knife into her. She thought she was around nine years old at the time, as she said she thought it had happened the year her mother told her "santy wasn't real".
The woman was very emotional and told the court she was finding it hard to get the words out and had "blocked it out for so long". She said she remembered her grandfather giving her money and sweets afterwards.
On a second occasion around a year later, in a different location, she said she was with two of her cousins when her grandfather came along again. She said he told her cousins to go and clean under the trailers and told her to stay behind.
She said he held her down across a hay bale. She felt she was smothering but he put his hand on her back to hold her down, she said. She told the court he would have hit her if she got up and she described how he again raped her. Afterwards she said he gave her money and she took off running.
The woman again became very upset describing this incident. She told the court the pain was unbelievable and she still had flashbacks. She said the incident went on for a few minutes but felt like forever.
The oldest defendant is charged with raping his granddaughter twice between 2002 and 2004 when she was between nine and 11 years old. He is also charged with 20 counts of raping one of his nephews when he was between nine and 12 years old, and with assaulting the same nephew.
The man’s 41-year-old son is charged with raping the same girl, who is his niece, between May 2000 and September 2001. This son is also charged with 28 charges of raping and sexually assaulting his sister between 1999 and 2005 when she was aged between 13 and 18.
His 40-year-old brother is charged with 31 counts of raping and sexually assaulting the same sister also between 1999 and 2005.
A third brother, who is 37, is charged with 32 counts of raping and sexually assaulting the same sister. This brother is also charged with two counts of raping his niece and two counts of raping a male cousin.
The charge of assisting an offender against the 63-year-old woman relates to this brother. Mr Costello said the allegation was that when the young girl came to the woman to tell her she had been raped, the woman instead of helping her, took steps to conceal the fact that an offence had been committed.
The case is expected to last for more than three weeks.
