Miss Ireland Chelsea Farrell has revealed how she was threatened on social media as she appealed to the Government to make online abuse illegal in this country.
"Two weeks after I won Miss Ireland I started to get messages on social media like, 'you're fat', 'you're ugly', but it escalated from there," she told RTÉ's Today With Claire Byrne.
"The messages grew more intense, more threatening. They were nasty, rather than petty comments. Things like, 'Watch your back', and 'You have a face that belongs at the bottom of the ocean.'
"They often started the message to appear nice, so I would click in to it, but then when I went into it, it would be really nasty."
Ms Farrell said the messages began to take their toll on her mental health.
"I think I have a thick enough skin but it all got too much and began to affect my mental health. I was crying all the time."
Ms Farrell said she was appealing to the Government to bring proposed legislation, Coco's Law, into force as soon as possible.
Coco's Law was named after a young woman, Nicole Fox Fenlon, known as Coco, who took her own life in 2018 as a result of online bullying.
Proposed legislation was agreed last year with a number of new offences.
These include taking and distributing intimate images without consent; online or digital harassment; a specific offence of stalking; an expanded offence of sending threatening or indecent messages; and "revenge pornography".
Ms Farrell said her petition to Government to enact the law has been signed by over 30,000 people.
The 20-year-old, who is on a year off from college, said she took a break from social media for a month after the abuse started to affect her mental health.
But she told RTÉ that engaging with social media was imperative to the progression of her career.
"My career is based on social media. By taking some time off I had to build that back up again, and I had to engage. It's my job, like many people. It's not fair that we have to come off due to trolling and online abuse."
Ms Farrell said within an hour of returning to social media, she received abusive messages.
"Within an hour of me posting another fake profile attacked me, with suicidal threats. It was disgusting."
The Miss Ireland winner is appealing to Government to enact legislation as soon as possible.
