Shame Shadow

I originally wrote the below short post, as my first ever piece of published writing (!!) I didn’t know about Substack at the time, until my friend and colleague

Orla Fitz

told me about it.

‘Shame Shadow’ began as a long and winding essay, a whisper that blew to a shout. But thanks to some good counsel (you know who you are!) the voice and form I have since found is poetry.

I wrote it originally about the story of Nicola Gallagher in which she posted on social media about being the victim of serious domestic violence over the course of many years, inflicted by her partner and husband at the time, the ex-Derry GAA football manager, Rory Gallagher. The world and its mother, it seemed, knew of the abuses she suffered. An Irish Independent exert on the story is included below. There was no winning verdict for Nicola, more that the story came out into the open, into the light from the shadows. Rory subsequently endured a fall from grace, from his position of power in the GAA and respect in the local community. He took back the shame that was his all along.

I was reminded of this injustice as the news broke yesterday evening in Nikita Hand’s High Court verdict of sexual assault against Irish mixed martial artist and professional boxer, Conor McGregor, from events that occurred 6 long years ago.

The thread running through both of these stories I feel is the attempt to thrust shame upon these women so they wouldn’t speak out and seek justice to right the wrongs they had suffered.

The facts are quite different in these two stories but I think it is notable that the use of alcohol and drugs were used in the assassination of their characters to undermine the testimony of the women. These pointed arrows were central in the defence of the men involved.

Last night a landmark decision was made in Ireland. Perhaps it is a milestone victory for the subverted voices of truth against those in positions of power.

I’m reposting ‘Shame Shadow’ for Nikita Hand today, for the Judge who issued clear guidance to the jury on what ‘consent’ is and isn’t, for the amazing work of The Rape Crises centre and Women’s Aid in Ireland.

For courageous women all over the world finding their voices, these voices aren’t whispers anymore.

Shame Shadow

(by Síodhna McGowan)

For a while
I felt her life  
as if it were mine

found myself punching man and keyboard blind
with buried, beaten words

         of truth

for nobody to see
but me

saving all womankind 
by whispering them first

to me

The jury was forced to wade through a grey area between consent and non-consent, through conflicting accounts and confusing testimony. The words of the judge, Mr Justice Alexander Owens, as he guided them through the task, should be printed out and stuck up in the bathrooms of nightclubs and secondary schools. They are a masterclass on consent, as useful a primer on rape myths as anything I’ve ever read.

Submission is not consent – it is not necessary to prove a person resisted, tried to run away or raise the alarm, he told them. “You should be cautious about what you think about what someone who is a victim of sexual assault should have done. It does not follow they will complain to the person about what happened; they may respond to that event in ways that may seem irrational.”

The sending of a photo on Instagram is “not an invitation to be sexually molested”. And the fact that a woman engages in risky activity such as drinking or taking drugs “does not mean they are up for sex”.

Hand won her civil case, but her lawyer was wrong about one thing. She would, he said in his summing up, “always be a marked woman because she stood up to Conor McGregor”. I disagree. Like Gisèle Pelicot, like Hazel Behan, like Lavinia Kerwick, Hand joins an army of women who have handed the shame back where it belongs. She won’t be marked by this in the public’s eyes; she will be remembered as the brave woman who refused to give up and – when she felt let down by the justice system – pursued her case in the civil courts at incalculable risk and cost to herself. In the end, it wasn’t Conor McGregor who showed the world what it means to be a fighter. It was Nikita Hand.

Source : https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/11/23/jennifer-oconnell-judge-in-nikita-hands-civil-action-against-conor-mcgregor-delivered-a-masterclass-in-consent/

---

Below is an exert on the Rory Gallagher story:

Nicola Gallagher sat in front of her computer in her home in Co Fermanagh last Tuesday, looking again at the 478 words she had written on her Facebook page, and knowing that if she hit the “post” button her life would change — for better or for worse, she didn’t know.

The post contained serious domestic abuse allegations against her former husband Rory Gallagher, the well-known GAA manager and ex-player.

The accusations relate to a period of more than two decades. Her heart, says the mother-of-three, was racing. She felt it was now or never.

“I sat for ages looking at it on my computer. I kept thinking, ‘Will I do it or will I not?’ What impact will this have on my children? I had a tightness in my chest, I got really afraid… and then I hit ‘post’.”

Within minutes her phone started to light up with messages from friends, family, and strangers; almost a week later the post has been “liked” more than 17,000 times.

Nicola Gallagher with 'Sunday Independent' journalist Rodney Edwards. Photo: David Conachy

“But the number of messages I have been getting from other women who say my speaking out has helped them means it was worth it. Some say it has helped them to break their own silence.”

On Friday night, Rory Gallagher said he was stepping away from his role as Derry GAA’s senior football manager, saying the decision was “borne out of a desire to protect my children from the ongoing turmoil. They will always be my priority.”​

Sitting on a sofa, Nicola speaks softly but clearly. Her parents, Gerry and Yvonne Rooney, two well-respected business people who own shops on both sides of the Border, look on. Occasionally, her mother is reduced to tears.

“If you hadn’t written that Facebook post, what would have happened?” I ask.

“I would be dead, 100pc. I needed to do it — it was my last resort.”

Her parents agree: “This has been a long time coming,” Gerry says.

“This is your time now, Nicola,” Yvonne says.

Nicola is open about her use of alcohol due to what she says was the toxicity of a marriage which ended in September 2019.

Her husband was recently given custody of their three children.

“I have been extremely traumatised,” she says. “But you just keep going, you keep going, you keep going, you try to block it out, you tell yourself that it never happened. Then you hit a wall. I turned to alcohol to block it all out.

“I am in recovery now, but it hasn’t been easy. This last year has been the toughest of my life. I will not shy away from the fact I have had issues with alcohol, but I have done something about it. I am thankful for the support network I have in my family and in Fermanagh Women’s Aid.”

Does she think her issues with alcohol, I ask, has resulted in unfair criticism in some quarters over the past few days?

“Yes,” she says. “I think it is being used against me. ‘Sure, who would believe her?’ But the response has been overwhelmingly positive.”

She describes a very unhappy, unpleasant marriage and recalls distressing moments, including claims of emotional abuse. She says those memories will “stay with me forever”.

But she admits she never felt she could end their marriage.

“I loved him, I try to see the good in everybody. I always wanted for our children what I had as a child. I had a happy, secure childhood; I wanted the same for them. But when you are living like that, all those difficult moments become normal. You get up and get on with it.”

In her Facebook post, Nicola cited several incidents she says took place over a 24-year period.

Sources say gardaí are keen to formally investigate the allegations and have attempted to contact Nicola in recent days.

Mr Gallagher was arrested in 2021 but not charged in relation to physical abuse claims against Nicola.

Source : https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/if-my-story-helps-one-woman-or-man-then-it-will-have-been-worth-it-nicola-gallagher-on-domestic-abuse-claims/a1936363625.html?errorCode=0