An Irish poet has debuted a poem on YouTube that hits back at people who abused her online after she wrote about her experience of being raped.
Alvy Carragher, who represented Ireland at an international poetry event in New York this summer, said she was speaking out to highlight the continued trolling of female Irish writers.
Carragher said she had been subjected to a campaign of abuse since she went public about the sexual assault. One email she received, which admonished her for writing her poem about the rape, went on for several thousand words, she said.
The Galway born 27-year-old said she would no longer be silenced by her online abusers.
“It took me nearly three years to write about the rape, which happened on New Year’s Eve when I had just turned 24. I recited it in public at a venue in Dublin in the early summer this year and that is when my troubles with the trolls really started.”
She said that she only noticed the torrent of email abuse after returning to her home in Dublin from a concert in May.
“ It was so shocking when I read them on my phone because they were quite creepy. They objected to my poem Numb, which was to do with the rape, although I wrote it in an ambiguous way, pointing out to my attacker that there was no consent, that this was a sexual assault.“They ranged from ‘You are just making this rape up’ to ‘This wasn’t actually rape.’ There were even comments questioning whether I was ‘rapeable’ or not! There were even some women questioning whether I was telling the truth about the rape.”
Carragher has framed the verse of her new poem in the language used by one of the people who emailed her..
“I decided to turn his very own words against him,” she said. “I wasn’t particularly bothered by the email but rather the fact that other young women, especially female writers, were being turned against in exactly the same way. So I was conscious to use all his words against him instead of labelling him as anything.
“Almost every female writer I know, both in prose and poetry in Ireland, who are online are constantly harassed. So I have dedicated this poem to them as well as it being me answering back to these trolls and this one particular individual. Using that one individual’s words is my way of taking back power from him.”
The Rape Crisis Centre in Dublin said social media in Ireland was in some cases being used to inflict further harm on the victims of sexual violence. Noeline Blackwell, the centre’s CEO, said: “Those who suffer sexual violence can indeed be subjected to abuse when they go public. When you think of how hard many people find it to reveal a sexual assault, including rape, to anyone – friend, authority figure, family member – then those who speak out publicly about those assaults show huge courage, a great sense of justice and a recognition that such assault is harmful, criminal and not the fault of the victim.
“When people speak out publicly, they can be met by a wide range of reactions from people not wanting to know and turning away, through solid support to yes, outright abuse. However, that virulent abuse does not seem to be the most common reaction.”
Carragher said she was struck by the fact that one of her online abusers described her as putting on a “vulnerable little girl act” while reading her poems in public. “This new poem is a response to that, to take the power away from him. It is my way of doing something about this.”
The Rape Crisis Centre in Ireland runs a national 24-hour helpline that people can contact by calling 1800 77 88 88