About Us
Sisters born into a large family of ten children in the late-1950’s early 1960’s in a disadvantaged area of Dublin, our childhood abuse at the hands of our father altered each of our personalities irrevocably.
Following our fathers court case where he received a 7-year sentence (serving 5) In 1992 we took part in a ground-breaking RTE documentary series entitled ‘Tuesday File’, Silent Scream (produced by Moya Doherty). Up to that point, RTE programmes on child abuse always had the interviewee’s face hidden and voices distorted, but we openly volunteered to share our story and despite the attempted injunction by our imprisoned father, the documentary was aired on RTE in October 1992.
The programme won a ‘Jacobs Award’ in 1992 and early the next year we were nominated for the Harvey’s/ Sunday Independent Irish Women of the Year. This programme also went on to be used as a training tool for professionals dealing with abuse victims and won the US National Women’s Studies Association Award in 1994.
In September 2011 the book of our childhood experience entitled ‘Click, Click’ was published by the Hachette Book Group and went straight to number one in the Irish non-fiction bestseller list.
This book, which was nearly twenty years in the writing, tells of our experiences of childhood trauma, detailing the abuse and manipulation we and our mother suffered at the hands of our father.
In 2011 we were awarded a Special Merit Award by our local community for our bravery in writing ‘Click, Click’.
Our message of hope has resonated with readers not only in Ireland but across the UK. Following our UK appearance on ITV’s This Morning with Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, on May 3rd, 2012, the book went straight to number four on the Amazon UK bestseller list and went on to number three in the UK nonfiction best-seller list and stayed in the top ten for 10 weeks.
Our story attracted a lot of media attention in the UK because our honesty and humour have not previously been seen in the media in relation to this type of subject matter. Best Magazine, Best of Chat Magazine, the Sun Newspaper, the Irish Post Newspaper and the Scottish Daily Record Newspaper along with BBC World Service Radio and LBC Radio ran interviews with us. We received hundreds of correspondences from individual readers and viewers expressing their thanks to us for sharing our story.
We were nominated for Best Magazine’s Inspirational Women Awards that took place in November 2012 in London. Following that media activity, we have shared our story with a number of groups in Ireland, Northern Ireland and in London and we were keynote speakers at The Open-Door Network Annual Conference, Home Truths – The Irish Experience of Domestic and Sexual Violence in November 2012.
In 2020 ‘Click Click’ it was re-published under a new title ‘Our Father’s Secret’ in the UK by the Orion Publishing Group. The book has been described as ‘a powerful, emotional and sometimes harrowing story of childhood sexual abuse.’
Childhood sexual abuse is a crime that effects every aspect of your life. It alters how you think and feel about yourself and all those around you. It changes how you are in the world. You must develop a new way of being in order to cope and because of this, you are completely unaware of how profoundly you have been damaged with the biggest impacts of abuse are those that are hidden from the conscious mind.
In December 2017 we self-published our second book ‘Why Go Back? 7 Steps to Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse.’ This is a book of hope. It is a unique resource that blends theory with practical examples of how the effects of abuse can manifest in the lives of its victims. It provides real life experiences of the variety of conditions and disorders that develop because of being abused and what they look like in real life, as well as providing steps to help victims overcome these impacts.
We had a very negative experience of the judicial system even making allowances for the fact in 1990 these cases were new. Our issue is that we have not witnessed much change since then and we really want to contribute to bringing about positive change.
The exclusion from the process was the most harmful to us, as there was no consideration for the fact that our life was on trial. We were not given access to information in relation to court dates and appearances. Legal representation was not awarded to us, yet he sat with a barrister and two solicitors. We met the state prosecutor just 30 minutes before the court case and he struggled to make eye contact.
During the hearing, our father got to dictate whether our statements were read out in court or not. The process was shameful, the sentence was inadequate, and it added to the trauma we had experienced. It is our intention to promote a greater understanding of and recovery from childhood sexual abuse, thus creating the motivation for change.
Joyce
My name is Joyce, and I am the oldest of the three of us girls. I come sixth in our family of ten children. I do have an older sister who left home when I was very young and still lives abroad. I have six children (all adults at this stage) and 10 grandchildren.
Like my siblings before me, left school at age 12 and immediately began working with my mother in our family business. A grocery store that over time diversified into a toy manufacturer.
For as long as I remember I always felt like the mother of the family as my own mum was always working. I took on the role of cooking and cleaning and everyone turned to me when they had any problems. This led me believing I had to be responsible and strong. This sense of responsibility grew stronger as I got older and although it allowed me to help others it also completely cut me off from myself. This was not a conscious thing, and it wasn’t until I began the healing process that I even realised it. It is called disassociation, and it was harder to break free from it then it was to act it out.
As a teenager working in the shop with my mum, I had an opportunity to build a relationship with her and was acknowledged for every little thing I did, something that was foreign to me up to then. I had the opportunity to get to know her, and even back then I realised she was just as much a victim as we were. Mum had learned to cut off from what was going on around her and had disassociation off to a tee. She sadly didn’t live long enough to know or understand that about herself.
I began my healing journey when the story broke and still to this day, I am learning new things about myself. Because of my personality and the beliefs, I held that I had to be a good girl and do as I was told it took me a lot longer to reach myself and identify how I was feeling. Today I feel I have achieved that, yet even now I can slip back into my fixer mode and switch my emotions off and although this can be useful at times it takes a lot of energy to keep it in check.
In my thirties and after my father was gone, I returned to education to study reflexology. I loved all things holistic and after achieving my qualification I went on to gain a further qualification in Aura Soma (healing through colours). Although I really enjoyed working at both my imposter syndrome prevented me from acknowledging my own abilities, so I stopped practicing.
I have always been very active within my community and firmly believed that I could make a difference in people’s lives. I went on to work for a community organisation that made education accessible to those like me who had left school early. It seemed a natural progression to avail of the opportunity to achieve a Degree in Community Development and Leadership.
In the background for many years, my sisters and I were also working on our first book Click, Click. We were extremely naïve when we published Click,Click and we firmly believed that us talking out would change things for all victims and end abuse. So, you can only imagine how disappointed we were when that didn’t happen.
In 2013 I took voluntary redundancy from my job and focused on our second book ‘Why Go Back? 7 Steps to Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse’.
I don’t believe this journey will ever be over, but the new learning is very freeing and rather than fear it I now embrace each opportunity. Between us we have gathered a wealth of knowledge about childhood sexual abuse that we feel needs to be shared. This is why we continue to shine light on the subject and its impacts and with your help I believe change can happen.
I don’t want to be remembered as a victim of childhood sexual abuse. I want to be remembered for standing up and speaking out to end the acceptance and ignorance around this crime.
June
Hi, my name is June. I ‘m married with 3 children Stephen, Christopher and Adam (all grown men at this stage) and two beautiful grandchildren, Caelán and Tadhg. My middle son has special needs as is a huge part of my life.
I am the middle girl of the three of us. That position growing up felt somewhat safe to me and I was surprised to find it played a role in my adult life in so far as I’ve always feared being number one and having to be responsible if anything went wrong, but I was fine right behind whoever took that position because I didn’t like to be last either.
Growing up, ironically I developed a reputation for smiling. It got me positive attention, so I used it to help me feel better. That worked until I started to deal with my past. It was a coping mechanism to challenge the bad feelings I kept hidden. As I got older, I found it hard to be in this world. I pretended to be strong for protection, but inside, I felt very weak. There were countless times I did not want to be here. I felt like a ticking timebomb with very negative internal dialogue. My poor educational background and my even poorer self-esteem resulted in a career that always involved giving, never receiving. Mostly in the hospitality sector.
It wasn’t till I was married with children that I pursued a career in holistic therapy. Exam time was terrifying for me as there was nowhere to hide. I had to be responsible, and I was totally out of my comfort zone. I was so stressed my periods stopped. I was thirty-nine and I never had another period in my life.
I achieved qualifications in reflexology, Indian head massage, acupressure and aroma therapy. I thought I’d found my calling and continued to study Reiki, tarot reading, aura soma and finally I studied and qualified in acupuncture.
I initially thought I could cure/fix the world, one person at a time but it wasn’t long before my lack of self-worth stopped me trusting myself. I began to feel like a fraud. When an opportunity to go for a Degree in Community Development and Leadership arose, I couldn’t resist. I had to drop everything else as it was a huge commitment, but I did it.
Writing both our books ‘Click Click’ and ‘Why Go Back? 7 Steps to Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse.’ has been the most important achievement of my life, apart from giving birth to my three sons. I believe writing our books goes a long way to fulfilling my life’s mission.
I have been working on myself for a long time now, I have learned so much and at this stage of my life, although I can still have bad days, I feel free. Because of the abuse, it has always been important to me that I am a good person. Honesty and trust are also not surprisingly really important.
I am a strong, compassionate, non-judgemental, and deeply understanding of not only my own pain but the pain of others. I thought at times I could never truly be helped but again thank God, I was proved wrong, and each piece of learning contributes to my wellbeing.
I no longer see myself as a victim nor a survivor I am simply a woman with a wealth of knowledge around the subject of childhood sexual abuse. I have a big heart and an even bigger mouth that I refuse to keep shut until I impart what I have learned with other victims helping them achieve the same level of freedom I now have.
I look forward to learning new things as I know in return, I receive more freedom, and my past no longer prevents me living a normal life. In fact, sharing what I have learned has given my life meaning.
Paula
My name is Paula, I am the ninth in a family of ten children and I am the youngest sister. When I left school at 14, I had no choice but to work in the family business which I hated with every bone of my body. My saving grace was sport. I used it as an escape and spent most of my teenage and early adult years heavily involved in basketball.
In 1989 following the disclosure of my father’s abuse I began working on myself, it wasn’t by choice as the breaking of our story wasn’t down to any of us. I also struggled to see the connection between the issues in my life and the abuse I suffered at the hands of my father. I put a lot of my issues down to just who I was and certainly being gay didn’t help.
When the family business closed down, I returned to education in my 30’s to study reflexology and discovered I had a passion for learning. I continued on to qualify in complementary therapies. However, after working in that field for a very short time my inability to own any achievements along with my poor self-esteem and social anxiety resulted in my walking away from years of training.
In 2003 I again returned to education as a way of avoiding getting a real job. At the time I convinced myself that if I just had more qualifications, I would be better placed to remain self-employed avoiding ever having to put myself out in the real world. So, I signed up for a BSc Degree course in Leisure Management knowing this would delay, for at least four more years, me having to join the real world.
Following the publications of our first book ‘Click, Click’ and my mother’s death I went into a downward spiral. I took voluntary redundancy and spent time doing the self-reflection that I had avoided for so long. This along with working on our second book, ‘Why Go Back? 7 Steps to Healing from Childhood Sexual Abuse’ was the best therapy I could ever have asked for.
I have learned through this process that the way I felt came from the messages I received all my life from my father convincing me that I was the problem. Although the personal work is never complete, it is certainly less painful and no longer impacts me negatively. I now look forward to learning more about myself and each time I have an ah ha moment! it provides me with more freedom.
I have gained so much from the healing process. Before I began, I was a loner, I had such a negative view of myself, I didn’t believe anyone could ever really like me, never mind love me. My learning has opened me up and allowed me to build strong supporting relationships with my sisters. My life has changed so much in a positive way that could only have happened through speaking openly and honestly about the abuse we each suffered.
When it comes to childhood sexual abuse, I don’t believe you are ever cured of its impacts. However, I no longer see myself as a victim or even a survivor of this crime but instead I see myself as a fighter. And I will continue to fight to bring out the truth about abuse and inform anyone who will listen.