Ryan O'Rourke: I was taught to throw a punch, not to talk about my feelings
20-year old Alicia Brough who was murdered by John Geary along with a young mother and her two toddlers in 2010.
Growing up, fighting seemed to be ingrained into what it meant to be a man.
We learned as we grew that you had to be able to stand your ground, fight your corner, and hold your own. Even as I write this, I find it hard to find fault with this viewpoint.
It’s how I was raised. But I have to ask where this leads us. How does this affect us when we finally become men?
Take a small, seemingly insignificant act of violence - like boxing the schoolyard bully. It might be condoned, or even encouraged, by adults - after all, it’s a boy standing up for himself.
And you can near guarantee that he will be praised by his peers. But what happens next?
Once we open the door to using violence as a means of conflict resolution, can we ever put it back in the box?
Can we expect these young men to be able to draw a line in the sand and say that it is acceptable to throw a punch at a match, but it's not ok to do so in the home?
If we label two young lads scrapping as “boys being boys”, are we not excusing the use of violence?
Can we then be surprised that so many men end up crossing that line when the lines have been blurred since they were toddlers?
We see it in the schoolyard, we see it at GAA matches, and we see it on the streets of every city, town and village in the country. This sort of mentality belittles violence in itself and makes it out to be no big deal.
When we're children, the majority of the time, the repercussions of a fight are at most a busted nose or burst lip. But as men, that same violence can end lives.
Every time there is a murder, like that of Ashling Murphy, we see the same conversations repeated. Some men, uncomfortable with any semblance of blame, are quick to point out that not all men act that way.
They’re right, in a way. Not all men will act that way. But some will - too many will - and too many innocent people will pay the price.
Sometimes it can be hard to see the wood for the trees. And it can be hard to see the culture that surrounds us when it is so ingrained into our lives.
When it’s our fathers, brothers, coaches and teachers who subconsciously encourage it - is it a surprise that so many can’t see the problem? But there is a problem and it isn’t going away.
According to Women's Aid Femicide Watch, 244 women have died violently between 1996-2022. As well as this, 18 children have died alongside their mothers.
Of those killed, 87% of women (where the case has been resolved) were killed by a man known to them while 13% of women were killed by a stranger. And, in the resolved cases, half of femicide victims were killed by a current or former male intimate partner.
In 2018, the year that Ana Kriégel was murdered by two teenage boys, a crime that shook us all to our core, there were 85 homicides in Ireland. There were 39 murders, eight manslaughters, and 38 dangerous driving incidents leading to deaths.
In that year, 87.5% of suspected offenders in detected homicides were men. In the same year, 98% of suspected offenders in crimes of sexual violence were men.
A look at physical assaults and related crimes in the same year shows that 80.5% of suspected offenders were men. These are damning statistics, and they may make an uncomfortable read for the ‘not all men’ crowd.
And men too pay the price of this toxic culture with the majority of homicide (77%) and assault (59%) victims being men in 2018.
The fact is, growing up, I probably had twice as many conversations with male role models about how to throw a punch than I did on how to manage my feelings or emotions.
We solved problems with fists, not conversations. But a conversation is now needed. Not on what women need to do to keep themselves safe, but one on whether there needs to be a cultural change around young men's relationship with violence.
I’ve felt the pressure, from my peers and my elders, on how to “act like a man”. But I have also seen the horrific ramifications that male violence can have.
I’ve buried friends, women and children, who were victims of male violence. I’m tired of it. I bet we all are. But we can’t seem to change it.
I won’t pretend that I have the answers - I’m 27 years old, I have barely lived. But I look to the women in my life for guidance.
Two women in particular - Maria Dempsey and Abina Ring, both of whom lost their daughters, and Abina her two grandchildren, to male violence.
I can only imagine the pain and anger they must feel to this day. But where others may have looked for revenge, they looked for progress, for change, and a world without violence.
And that is something I can believe in.
- If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please click here for a list of support services.
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