Telling the world the bitter truth

WHEN Lorraine Mulvey told the media last month how she had been abused by her father for 12 years, the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre was inundated with phone calls.

By bravely waiving her anonymity, Lorraine hoped other victims of abuse would speak out. She achieved her aim. “Lorraine has done a tremendous amount of good. I think her generosity of spirit, to want to share her experience, to want to encourage other victims to come forward, is fantastic,” says Ellen O’Malley Dunlop, the chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. “In the past, people would not have been supported. Unfortunately, society would have treated the victim in some way as a pariah rather than the perpetrator. So that is a big and important shift.”

Kelly and Charlene