The determination of one person can still make a big difference

RECENTLY in this column, I wrote about the stupidity and futility of spending millions on a drug strategy that has failed so miserably elsewhere, not just over years, but over decades.

Afterwards I received an e-mail from Vincent J Lavery, who said that he had been campaigning for such change for the past 37 years.

I talked to Mr Lavery on the telephone and was impressed by his public spiritedness and his optimism. He is determined to do what he can to wake people up to the appalling futility of the current drug strategy.

“I do hope a lobby group and/or national debate will begin on this subject,” Mr Lavery wrote. “It is far too important to leave off ‘until tomorrow’.” He clearly believes that the determination of one person can still make a difference.

This all came to mind when reading the tributes to the late Nuala Fennell, who died this week.

She was stirred to write to the press in February 1974 after watching a television documentary, Scream Quietly, or the Neighbours will Hear. It was about wife beating in England.

Many of the sentiments expressed by the women in the documentary were reflected in letters that she was receiving for Irish wives who were suffering in exactly the same way.

“Women with this problem living in the country have a solitary misery,” Nuala wrote. “They cannot talk about it, so they write and describe the injuries they receive and their efforts to hide them from neighbours.”

One woman sent her a coloured photograph of her battered face.

“In another case I know, where the local police had 25 complaints of brutality made by the wife, but because her husband is an important person in the area, they refuse to press charges,” Nuala continued.

“I have seen women who have had their faces cut with a carving knife, their hair pulled out in lumps from the roots, arms broken, chest and stomach kicked, in many case, incredibly, when the woman is pregnant with the husband’s child.”

She wrote of battered wives telling her of walking the streets with their children at night to protect them from an abusive husband. They felt they had nowhere to turn.

“Of course,” Nuala wrote, “there is the overall need for law reform in this area as in so many others, to give greater protection for such wives.

“Knowing the way the State will abdicate responsibility for any problem area in which a voluntary group is operating, I am reluctant to suggest that a home should be set up by a voluntary effort,” she continued.

Now, with the recent publication of the Ryan report, we have a voluminous account of the kind of abuse that can develop by merely leaving problems to be solved by voluntary effort.

Remember, most of the people who engaged in the catalogue appalling abuse in the industrial schools were “voluntary” workers.

They essentially volunteered to abuse children, and were still getting away with it at the time Nuala Fennell began her campaign.

She ended her letter with an appeal to anyone “who would like information on the situation that exists here, or who would be interested in organising a project such as the Women’s Aid in England” to get in touch with her.

It was largely as a result of her initiative that the first Women’s Aid refuge was set up in Ireland shortly afterwards.

Margaret Martin, the director of Women’s Aid, paid a moving tribute to Nuala Fennell after talking to many of the people who were involved during the early days of Women’s Aid.

They talked of her vision and pioneering spirit combined with her determination.

It is really the story of how one woman could making a difference by inspiring others to believe that they, too, could help make a real difference by helping people in terrible trouble.

The following is Margaret Martin’s tribute to Nuala, after talking to those who had worked closely with her.

“People described her as a woman who had great energy and initiative — who got things done.

“They spoke of a chaotic time when Women’s Aid survived month to month on the voluntary actions of a few who ‘begged, stole and borrowed’ to have enough food and clothes for the women and children who sought refuge from domestic violence.

“When Women’s Aid secured a dilapidated building in Harcourt Terrace on a short term basis to set up the first women’s refuge in Ireland, the ‘Irish Building Companions’ formed to help make the place habitable.

“One volunteer told me that she remembers being in the middle of painting one of the rooms when a group of women and children arrived carrying all of their belongings in black sacks, such was the need for crisis accommodation.”

The importance of providing a safe place for women to escape domestic violence was paramount for the founding members. In its first four months, Women’s Aid accommodated 40 women and 135 children and provided help and support to more than 400 women.

Speaking a few months after it was formed, Nuala hoped that “the Women’s Aid movement would expand to ensure a special place in all communities, city and country, for abused women and their children.”

By simply writing to the press in 1974, Nuala Fennell inspired a significant shift in social, cultural and political thinking towards abused women.

Since then, Margaret Martin notes, there have been many legal and social changes to make women safer.

Domestic violence legislation has outlawed marital rape and local refuges and support services have been established to deal with domestic violence.

“Women’s Aid continues to believe that domestic violence continues hidden in Irish society and that the abuse we hear of through our services is just the tip of the iceberg. For that reason we maintain that having a safe place to go to is a key part of tackling domestic violence.”

Despite these realities, refuge facilities in this country are still very inadequate. There are only 123 family places available, instead of the 423 family spaces recommended by a recent Council of Europe report.

Looking back over her archives of women’s stories stretching back over the back three decades, Margaret Martin was struck by how similar violence and terror still exists.

Other so-called recreational drugs are now contributing to the problems and this could get worse as growing unemployment and disillusionment spread with the current economic depression.

Nuala Fennel showed that one person can make a difference, and it is time that we all began to play a part.