Mary Crilly accepts Cork's Freedom of the City for the survivors and their supporters

Ms Crilly revealed that she is working on a three-year exit plan to step down as Cork Sexual Violence Centre CEO by the time she is 70.

Mary Crilly, CEO of the Sexual Violence Centre Cork was awarded the freedom of the city. Picture: Michael O'Sullivan /OSM PHOTO

The crusading founder and CEO of the Cork Sexual Violence Centre has accepted her freedom of the city award on behalf of all the people it has helped and for all those who have helped the centre over four decades.

Humbled and emotional, Mary Crilly, made her comments as she was bestowed with the city’s highest civic honour during a special meeting of Cork City Council.

Among the guests at the ceremony in City Hall were Ms Crilly’s long-term partner, her daughters, Sarah and Niamh, and many people who have been supported by the centre she helped found 40 years ago.

Ms Crilly, 67, said: “They have told me that they really feel that this award is for them. And the people who have helped out in the centre in various ways over the years - they feel it’s theirs too.” 

What an incredible moment #Cork pic.twitter.com/CmNkxnQrqq

— Eoin English (@EoinBearla) June 9, 2022

She also revealed that she is working on a three-year exit plan to step down as centre CEO by the time she is 70. She stressed however that she will continue her campaigning and advocacy work.

Ms Crilly was honoured in recognition of her unstinting support and advocacy for survivors of sexual violence over four decades; for her advocacy and campaigning on behalf of victims of sexual and domestic violence, sex trafficking, female genital mutilation and stalking; for supporting victims in court, or at the city's sexual assault treatment unit; for her work visiting schools and colleges; and for working with government, statutory and voluntary agencies to change and influence social policy.

In a special video message, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Ms Crilly has always advocated from the victim's perspective, and her work has had an enormous impact on the lives of thousands of people, especially women.

Deputy Lord Mayor Mary Rose Desmond hailed her “extraordinary resilience and fortitude” which saw her begin her work at a time when sexual and domestic violence was downplayed in Ireland, and when some single mothers were being sent to mother and baby homes or Magdalene laundries.

Deputy Lord Mayor Mary Rose Desmond with Mary Crilly. Picture: Michael O'Sullivan /OSM PHOTO

She praised her for reaching out to people who were "suffering in the shadows" and said those involved in the centre in the early days "listened, they believed and they acted."

“Not only have thousands benefitted from this work and dedication, but she has driven societal change in the way that sexual violence is now dealt with in this country. That Cork is recognising this remarkable woman with the Freedom of the City is so very fitting and a proud day for Mary and for the city."

Ms Crilly now joins the ranks of fellow pioneering female freedom of the city recipients, including Adi Roche, Mary McAleese, Mary Robinson, Sonia O’Sullivan and Maureen Curtis Black. Other high-profile recipients of the honour include Roy Keane, Michael D Higgins, Michael Flatley, Albert Reynolds, John Major John Hume, Jack Lynch, Éamon de Valera and John F Kennedy.

Mary's Pride 

Originally from Dublin, Ms Crilly arrived in Cork in 1977, and by 1983, the then recently separated mother of two young children helped establish the Cork Rape Crisis Centre and a helpline.

In an emotionally charged and revealing video which was played to guests during the freedom ceremony, Ms Crilly said she was proud of everyone who has worked or volunteered at the centre, which later became the Cork Sexual Violence Centre, but was also proud of herself.

“And I have never acknowledged this before - (I am) proud for sticking it out because there were times when you felt very lonely, very isolated and very low, especially in the early years when there was no funding, when you were dealing with institutions trying to get funding, which isn’t the easiest at the best of times,” she said.

She spoke of how she felt isolated when people didn’t really “get” what the centre was about, and of how she often felt a backlash, even from people who were working alongside her on various campaigns who felt different about the work.

She also admitted: “If I looked at myself back then, going to the original meetings, I really wouldn’t have given myself six months, let alone 40 years, because I was really walking in at the deep end, from somebody who was at home with two kids, who hadn’t been involved in any organisations before, in any groups, who hadn’t gone to college.

I was totally at sea but I just kind of kept my feet in, I kept chugging along and sometimes it felt like my feet were in mud and stuck but I just kept going. I don’t know why but that’s just kind of what happened.

She spoke too of the wider reaction from sections of society when the Rape Crisis Centre opened in Cork, with “huge concern” amongst the clergy, in City Hall, and at senior levels of An Garda Siochána, that those involved were going to “disrupt family values”.

“But what I found with the guards on the beat, those we met with on a day-to-day basis, was that they felt very different. They were really welcoming to us, because they were coming across this (sexual violence) issue,” she said.

“City Hall weren’t very forthcoming or welcoming at the start. So after 40 years, to have the freedom of the city is phenomenal. 

“I am so touched that the city is acknowledging something as awful as sexual violence, that it’s happening in the city and acknowledging that it’s something we need to do something about, that we’re not sweeping it under the rug. This is City Hall acknowledging that it happens and that we want to acknowledge it.”