A 76-year-old man has been remanded in custody to await sentencing after admitting he indecently assaulted two young girls in the 1970s and 1980s.
One of his victims told the court that she waived her right to anonymity to ensure her former community saw "me as a person".
Michael Griffin, with an address at Donore Road in Drogheda, pleaded guilty to eight sample counts of indecent assault.
The charges span a time period between 1973 and 1982.
The complainants in the case, twin sisters Mary and Regina Cooney, waived their right to anonymity before Dundalk Circuit Court today, so that Griffin could be named.
The court heard today that Griffin had married into their family after marrying a relative of Mary and Regina Cooney.
The abuse began when the sisters were just four years old and happened during family visits to the home of their grandfather and to the home of the accused man.
During a sentencing hearing today before Judge Dara Hayes, the court heard details of statements both women made to gardaí outlining how they remembered Griffin touching and groping them on various occasions.
Mary Cooney told gardaí she remembered being assaulted every Sunday by Griffin.
The court heard that Regina Cooney also told gardaí that she remembered her and her sister trying to remember to wear trousers as she thought it would prevent Griffin from touching them.
Outlining the case today, Detective Garda Kevin Clancy of Virginia Garda Station agreed that when allegations were first put to Griffin during a garda interview, he denied the allegations.
The court heard Griffin told gardaí he was baffled in relation to the allegations being made.
Victim impact statements
Reading her victim impact statement to the court today, Mary Cooney said that waiving her right to anonymity was an "important process for me to gain closure on this trauma".
She said she wanted people in Drogheda to remember her as someone they went to school with.
"I want them to see me as a person and not just to read about an anonymous victim", she said.
Mary Cooney said that the abuse affected her socially, psychologically, emotionally, psychosexually, physically and economically and that the humiliation and fear she suffered cannot be quantified.
She said she had emigrated to the UK and had avoided returning to Drogheda.
She said she wants to start visiting Drogheda again, "with the comfort that the secret is no longer a secret and that the shame has been handed back to Michael Griffin".
Both sisters said they had never married or had children. Mary Cooney said that she grieved for the life that she wanted for herself.
They also outlined how they had not engaged with the cervical screening process in the UK to avoid intimate examinations.
Regina Cooney said she had waived her right to anonymity in the hope it would give others encouragement to go forward.
In her victim impact statement, she outlined how she suffered from severe depression over the years.
She said the "scar tissue from the injury of multiple childhood sexual assaults never heals - it's always there".
"The burden of the trauma wound is a life sentence", she said.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Griffin is a retired postal worker, having also served in the Defence Forces for three years in his younger years.
Lawyers for Griffin told the court that he is 76 years old and had retired in 2010.
They said that he has done work in his church and participated in fundraising for various causes.
A letter of apology from Griffin was read to the court this afternoon, "profusely" apologising to the two complainants and asking for their forgiveness.
His lawyer told the court that Griffin has no previous convictions.
Judge Hayes described what happened as "serious offending" which took place "over a long number of years through most of their childhood".
Addressing the complainants, Judge Hayes thanked them for being in court today and said he was sorry for what happened to them in their childhoods.
He said it seemed that a custodial sentence was an "absolute inevitability" in this case.
He remanded Griffin in custody and adjourned the case until January, when a date for the finalisation of sentencing would be set.
