Recent reports of violent incidents in Ireland and the UK, particularly violence against women, unleashed a flood of personal stories across media platforms and on social media over the past few days. In the UK, the remains of 33-year old Sarah Everard were found in Kent and a 48-year-old officer in the Met. Police has been charged with her murder. In Cork, Séamus Troy suffered a savage unprovoked attack and he spoke to Joe Duffy on Liveline earlier this week about its lasting impact on his life. In light of these stories and the attempted abduction of a woman in her 60’s in Dublin earlier this year, four women spoke to Joe Duffy about their experiences of assault and attempted murder and how their lives have been affected.

Joe's chat with Séamus Troy brought up bad memories for Mary Lynch and she got in touch with Liveline to talk about how her life has changed since being assaulted almost 14 years ago. The perpetrator, Jerry McGrath went on to murder Sylvia Roche-Kelly while out on bail. Mary told Joe her life has changed forever:

"In my home my doors are locked. I lock all my doors inside. All doors are locked at night time. Every door is locked at night time. Because you now know what's going to happen. Before this, I would never have thought of it."

Cork woman Sinéad O'Leary called in to talk about the impact of a vicious stabbing attack back in 2002, which also took the life of her friend Nicola Sweeney. Sinéad herself was stabbed 20 times by Peter Whelan, who broke into her friend Nicola's house at random, and Nicola died of injuries inflicted by Whelan. Sinéad says the pain doesn’t end when the physical wounds heal. Whelan was jailed for murder and attempted murder, but Sinéad says she is haunted by his lack of remorse and the fear that he will eventually be released. In the event, she says she will need to leave her home for her own safety:

"The only regrets he expressed were that he didn't do more to kill me. I now live in a position where I'm waiting for, there's a parole hearing underway at the moment, I'm waiting to be emailed, to be told if he's being released or not and based on that, I would have to uproot my whole life and move away to protect myself."

Mary Lynch says that victim-blaming can colour people's comments on what happened to her, even years later. The attack was carried out by a passenger in her taxi, and she says people have questioned her decision to continue working as a driver. Mary says she doesn't think a woman should be forced to ditch her job because of the threat of male violence:

"Once it's over, if you say anything, if you talk about it, you're nearly told, 'If you stop talking about it, you'll get over it, you'll be fine.' Or 'Why are you doing the job?' like what was said to me. 'You're not still doing the job, are you?' And I said well, yes I am. I don't have a choice. I have to pay bills. 'Well, you shouldn't be doing that – you're a woman! But I should be doing it. It's what I want."

Mary predicts that similar questions will be raised about Sarah Everard in the UK and the woman who narrowly escaped being locked in the boot of a car on Blackhorse Avenue in Dublin in January:

"That woman in England, what will be said about her is, 'Why was she walking at that hour?' The woman from Blackhorse that you've just been speaking about, 'Why was she going out at 7 o'clock in the morning for a walk on her own?' Why not, is my answer, why not?"

Sinéad O'Leary has campaigned for exclusion zones to apply to convicted murderers, so that victims' families don't have to live close to perpetrators on their release. She says:

"These murderers are reintroduced in society without any regard for the families, at all. It's inhumane, it really is. There has to be exclusion zones in this country for cases like that."

Sinead is frustrated that there is no official way to request that a murderer live a certain distance from those impacted by his crime:

"You have no voice. You have no say."

You want to be able to move on with your life, she says, but there's no space to do that. For Sinéad, it’s a daily battle with the killer of her friend:

"He attempted to take my life, so I have to continue to fight for my life."

Lucy O'Sullivan called in to the show with a practical safety tip about crisis features built into many smartphones, which she says can be set to call emergency services. The 25-year old spoke about what she and her friends do to avoid being attacked at night, like tucking in their hair and calling and texting each other to check they get home safely. There was a general consensus that men and boys have a role to play; as Lucy puts it:

"Instead of all this education on 'don't go out at night', you know, 'put keys between your fingers', all this sort of stuff, there should be a big, big emphasis on educating boys and men, everyone on how to look out for these sort of incidents happening, how to protect someone in a situation. And on what not to do to make people feel safe on the street."

Joe also spoke to 'Rachel' who was raped after meeting a man online and 'Catherine' who was stalked by a convicted sex offender and you can hear more in the full show here.

If you need to access information and support, the Rape Crisis Centre national 24-hour helpline is 1800 778888.

Ruth Kennedy