Why is this happening?

Are attacks on young woman happening more frequently now or are we just more aware of them?

This week saw a number of vicious, apparently random attacks on women in Ireland. Why is there such rage against women in this country?

A girl in her late teens was attacked while out in a walk in Kilkenny on Monday afternoon leaving the community there shocked. There was a garda manhunt for the man who attacked the girl in Johnstown, Co Kilkenny but no one has yet been arrested.

The girl was exercising when she was attacked by a stranger on a rural close to the village.

Gardaí in a statement said: “The male is best described, at this time, as a white male in his 40s with an Irish accent.”

We get numerous garda press releases each day and this is the first time I remember seeing the description of a suspect having an Irish accent. It’s clearly a new strategy to stop racists suggesting that foreigners or people who may not look like a white Irish person being blamed for attacks on women as happened previously.

If people were hoping that things would change in the wake of the shocking murder of Ashling Murphy in Tullamore in January, the opposite seems to have happened.

Unfortunately an even more serious and vicious attack took place in Cork city last weekend too.

A woman in her 20s was attacked on Saturday night on Evergreen Street near the South Gate Bridge at around 11.30pm when she was attacked by a lone male. That’s an area I lived near for many years and it seems like it was the victim’s saving grace that it is a busy area with lot of pedestrians, traffic and people outside pubs as passersby appear to have helped her.

The woman received substantial injuries after the man beat her in the face and head in what seems to be another random attack.

Passing drivers seem to have come to her aid and scared off the attacker. She is now recovering in hospital.

Gardaí have been looking at CCTV footage from the area and carrying out door-to-door inquiries. They suspect that the young woman may have been followed for some time.

Gardaí are appealing for anyone who was in the South Main Street/Barrack Street/Evergreen Street and Evergreen Road area between 11pm and midnight on Saturday night, who may have witnessed anything unusual, to contact them at Anglesea Street on 021-4522000.

What is wrong with these people? How can they simply attack people in the head that they don’t even know? If you hit anyone in the head, you run the risk of seriously hurting them or even killing them. It’s very likely that you will at least traumatise them severely, affecting their life forever more.

Where does this all end?