Mary stepping back but not standing down

“I wouldn’t mind another 40 years’ go at it, to see what other changes we could make.”

Last month, Mary Crilly, the long-time Chief Executive Officer of the Sexual Violence Centre Cork, announced she would be stepping down from the role. The centre is now looking for a pair of feet for what are sure to be nearly impossible shoes to fill.

It is a decision she said she isn’t taking lightly, but is impacted by a number of realities in her life.

“I’m 71, so that’s part of it,” she said. She also has three grandchildren, two of whom live outside of Ireland, so being able to spend more time with them is a priority for her.

The stability of the centre is also a concern. She said keeping the centre there and available for victims is what’s important.

“I had stage three bowel cancer four or five years ago, so you just don’t know what’s going to happen.

“I’ll miss the place, but I want it to go on. It mightn’t go on the way that I want it to, but I’m just going to have to suck that up and deal with it,” she said.

While she may not be CEO for much longer, Crilly has no intention of hanging up her boots.

In the last two years, Safe Gigs Ireland, a campaign to tackle sexual violence and other issues in the music scene such as spiking, has seen serious growth, and has come to dominate much of her time.

“I never thought at this stage of my life that I’d be getting 11 or 12 o’clock buses back after being in the Button Factory or Whelans, which is what I’m doing regularly,” she said.

Her work on the campaign had an impact on her decision to step back as CEO - she felt that she ultimately had to make a choice between the two, and as she said: “I’m afraid that if I take a step back from Safe Gigs, it will die.”

Outside of that particular campaign, she said she is also determined to see standalone legislation be enacted dealing with stalking. She said that it has become a significant issue for the centre in the past 10 to 15 years, and needs to be dealt with by itself. It is an issue that she said is widespread in Ireland, but that this is being denied.

Proof of this is interest in a recent information webinar which the centre ran.

“We held the webinar just to get information on stalking. We said if we got 60 people we’d be happy. We got 890,” she said.

A cold environment

Despite all the work of Crilly and the centre since it opened in 1983, she said the legal system is still a hostile environment for victims.

“There’s a whole thing of ‘I want something done but I’m afraid of court’, and you’re still waiting two or three years to go to court, if not more.

“And you know when you do get to court, you’ll be the one who will have to prove it happened the way you say it happened. The only thing the other side is interested in is ‘how can I discredit this person?’ - and they do that in the first half an hour,” she said.

The burden of proof - beyond any reasonable doubt - in sexual assault cases means that juries are reluctant to convict even in the small number of cases which do make it to court she said.

“I think if I was on a jury,” he said, “I’d be nearly afraid to find somebody guilty,” she said. Despite this, the attitude towards sexual violence from the authorities has changed from when the centre was established - a time when queues would line Washington Street to hear cases of rape in the district court, she said.

A changed landscape

One service which has changed considerably according to Crilly is An Garda Síochána. “It’s like night and day,” she said.

The attitude of the gardaí has changed from one of open hostility - the centre’s original offices above the Quay Coop were raided by the Garda Special Branch in the 1980s - to one of active support. “I remember there was a woman a number of years ago up on Barracks Street who was ahead of the game. She brought all of the superintendents from the outlying areas into a talk … and they were appalled.

“Whereas now, Barry (McPolin), the last chief superintendent, is on our board. But that took 40 years to change that culture,” she said.

Of particular importance now, compared to when she began her work, is the belief in victims.

“When people do disclose, the majority of the time they’re believed, whereas they weren’t before.

“I’m not saying that will necessarily make a difference, but they are believed,” she said.

The future

Crilly’s heart, even after more than 40 years, is still in campaigning.

“I’d love to have a good shot of maybe at least 10 or 15 years of just campaigning, of just being out there.

“Can you imagine just 10 or 15 years just campaigning, and just being out there? You could really change things, because people do want things changed … when Irish people see injustice, they do something about it.”