Rape survivor Ciara Mangan: 'That was the moment the shame left me and he took it into prison with him'

Ciara Mangan waived her right to anonymity in the case against rapist Shane Noonan

Ciara Mangan: 'Now, I just want to put this behind me, if I can. I’ll never forget it. But I feel I do have a brighter future now. I know I’m going to be happy.' Picture: Michael Donnelly

“When he pleaded guilty, it felt like I took my first breath,” Ciara Mangan said after the man who raped her was sentenced to eight years in jail, with the final year suspended.

“It was like something left my body. That was the moment the shame and the guilt left me and he took it into prison with him. That’s what vindication felt like for me. It was the transferring back of the shame onto him finally, after so long.

“I felt freer, lighter.” 

Ms Mangan waived her right to anonymity in the case against Shane Noonan, aged 28, of Castlehill Park, Turlough Rd, Castlebar, Co Mayo.

On Monday, Noonan pleaded guilty to raping her when they were both 18 at a house party in Castlebar on May 11, 2013.

The court this week heard that Ms Mangan started to feel very unwell after she was handed an open can of cider at a party.

Noonan “made a beeline for her” when she began to look incapacitated and vulnerable, guided her to a bathroom, and raped her on the floor as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

He then left her there alone, ‘like a piece of rubbish’ in such a vulnerable condition that she could have choked on her own vomit.

“I am lucky to still be alive,” she said. 

Shane Noonan of Castlehill Park, Turlough Rd, in Castlebar, pleaded guilty to the rape of Ciara Mangan at a house party 10 years ago. Picture: Collins Courts

Ms Mangan and Noonan grew up on the same road in Castlebar. She knew him to see but they never spoke before they began working in the same fast food restaurant as teenagers.

Even then they barely spoke and she believed he did not like her. He was “strange”, she said.

Ms Mangan believes that the rape was planned. And Ms Justice Eileen Creedon also said that the rape had been premeditated, cold, and predatory.

Ms Mangan had not planned to go to the party where she was attacked, but felt pressured to go by people who were older and “kind of popular”.

“They said I was wanted there.

“It was a kind of popular group of people. I thought, ‘wow, they really want me at this party, how cool'." 

Ms Mangan was handed two open cans of cider with a straw. But halfway through the second can she began to feel very unwell.

“I couldn’t stay awake. I couldn’t see and I couldn’t hear properly. I couldn’t stand unaided.

“He was stalking me from across the room all the time. Waiting for me to get really out of it. 

“Once he saw his best chance he made a beeline over to me and told me to go upstairs.” 

She refused but was scared of Noonan. She was largely incapacitated, struggling to stay awake, and he guided her to the bathroom where he locked the door, ordered her to lie on the floor, and raped her as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

The next day at work everyone already knew that she had been raped and seemed to find it funny. 

One colleague told her she should ‘just be grateful that he didn’t get you pregnant’. 

“I’d walk into work petrified. I felt shame and embarrassed. 

“The singing and the rape jokes started. Everyone was singing them.

“I was brainwashed into thinking rape was not a serious thing because people found it so funny."

But when her sister was due to start work in the same fast food restaurant she had to stop her and save her from any potential abuse.

“I couldn’t let her go. So I told my Mam then," said Ms Mangan.

“It was lifted off my shoulders then. My problems felt halved. I knew someone was going to help me."

Ciara Mangan: Rape culture needs to be 'shut down'. Picture: Michael Donnelly

Ms Mangan had a happy childhood and teenage years until the rape.

“I was born in London. I lived there until I was eight. But my parents wanted to move somewhere their kids would grow up safer.

“So we moved to Castlebar because my parents are from Mayo.

“I had a lovely childhood and lovely teen years. I had great friends. I was good at school.

“I was a busy girl. I played the fiddle, did lifesaving training, I did horse riding. I was just a normal girl. With a normal family. I was happy.” 

Ms Mangan was ambitious and worked hard in school. She planned to study accountancy.

“I worked so hard, I really did. But it all just crumbled so close to the end.

“I’d have got at least 150 more points, probably more [without the trauma of the rape beforehand].” 

Despite the trauma, Ms Mangan secured enough points to study business and German at the University of Limerick.

But her mental health was so badly impacted that she was on the verge of suicide in the first year.

“My Mam called me. I had not left my bed for a week. I said, ‘I’m sorry but I don’t want to live anymore'.

“She kept me on the phone to make sure I was safe, got in the car from Mayo, and came to bring me home.

“I didn’t want to live anymore. But the only reason I didn’t do anything was because of my family. 

“My medication got upped and I really had to commit to psychological therapy and dealing with the trauma. And it really helped. I did get out of that depression and life started to get a little bit better.

“I got my degree and because I could speak German I decided to go to Berlin. I really was so excited to run away from Castlebar. He was still out. You’d see him everywhere you went.

“They [the rapists] go around living their best lives and their victims are just silenced and hiding and feeling scared and anxious about bumping into them. It should be the other way around.

It makes you angry. I spent 10 years hiding away from him but it should have been the other way around. He should have been hiding from me.

“I only walked on my own around Castlebar for the first time once he had pleaded guilty and I knew he was in jail.” 

Ms Mangan got an accounting job in Berlin and has been in the city for four years. She has a German boyfriend and the pair plan to move to the west coast of Ireland, most probably Galway, in the coming months.

Ms Mangan’s experience is horribly common.

CSO data

Recent CSO data shows that four in 10 adults have experienced sexual violence, 52% of women and 28% of men. But prosecutions for sexual offences, although rising, remain low, as do convictions.

“It’s like you don’t know how many victims there are living in the shadows of all of these rapists and abusers,” said Ms Mangan.

She encouraged anyone who has suffered sexual violence to contact the Rape Crisis Centre, which helped her to heal after the attack.

“People are waiting in the Rape Crisis Centre with open arms to just hear what you have to say. You will be believed. And no matter how many years have gone by, it’s never too late. You’re not alone.” 

She has called for rape culture to be “shut down” by the people of Ireland refusing to tolerate language that makes light of sexual violence.

I think rape culture needs to be seriously looked at in this country. I think people take it too lightly and don’t appreciate the seriousness and devastation it causes.

"Not just to victims and survivors but to their families as well, their friends.

“It needs to be not tolerated, completely shut down. If you do hear someone making light of this, you have to say, ‘no, that’s not okay to say'. 

“That’s such a basic but vital step in ending rape culture.

“If people had said it back then it could have saved me a lot of trauma and pain and suffering. And maybe I wouldn’t have issues with trust, or doubting myself, things like that, now.” 

Ciara Mangan speaking outside the Criminal Courts of Justice. Picture: Collins Courts

Ms Mangan said that the court process should also be speeded up to make it easier for victims of crime.

It took five years, including two years of covid delays, to bring her case to court.

Character references for rapists must also be banned in courts, she said.

“It’s like we’re living back 200 years ago that people can support a rapist. And for it to be recognised as a mitigating factor [in the judge’s sentencing]. There’s already a jury and judge, why do we need references from other people?”

Ms Mangan never got an apology letter from Noonan and said she does not want one.

But she has heard from other survivors who reached out on social media to thank her for her bravery in speaking out. 

"One person said, ‘I want to thank you on behalf of all the women and men of Ireland. What you did was so brave and courageous. I’ve gone through something similar. You’ve given me some form of light. And hope'.

"If there was just one thing I could have done by waiving my right to anonymity it was putting a face out there for victims and showing some hope maybe to other people.

"Now, I just want to put this behind me, if I can. I’ll never forget it. But I feel I do have a brighter future now. I know I’m going to be happy."