Sheila O’Brien of Co. Cavan on her bike. Photo: Sheila O’Brien. On June 6, Sheila O’Brien of Co. Cavan will set out on a journey from the north to the south of the island titled “Breaking the Cycle”; a cycle meant to challenge her and engage onlookers on the topic of domestic violence. Cycling from Malin to Mizen, against the wind and by herself, Ms O’Brien said she wants the journey to reflect her own experience in surviving domestic abuse. “I’m doing it slowly, and I’m doing it into the wind because my journey wasn’t easy, and I’m not even saying my journey is over yet.”
Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Ms O’Brien explained that she is going through with the cycle “to raise money to try and support the women who are still going through domestic violence.” Cycling from Malin Head to Mizen Head, an infamous tour through the country, was always on Ms O’Brien’s bucket list, she said. In February the Boston native began planning her trip.
Inspiration
Living in Ulster, Ms O’Brien said she was disheartened by the daily news stories covering cases of domestic violence in Northern Ireland and the Republic, and thus decided to partner with Safe Ireland, a charity working to end domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, on “Breaking the Cycle”.
“I’m not going to do it in some amazing 37 hours or something,” explained Ms O’Brien. “I’m going to do it slow and I’m going to do it solo and I’m going to do it unsupported, because that’s exactly what I went through in my story.
“The unsupported part is nobody’s fault, but I didn’t feel I could reach out, and I know a lot of people probably feel like ‘what do the neighbours think’. It’s a stigma.”
Referencing her own experience in an abusive marriage, Ms O’Brien expressed her deep gratitude for two close friends who kickstarted her journey in getting help.
Walking in her village of Mountnugent one day, she recalled an encounter with two friends who could immediately tell something was off with their friend. “I had kind of disappeared off the face of the Earth…I thought I was hiding it pretty well but obviously I wasn’t,” she said.
While leaving the relationship was difficult enough, Ms O’Brien found that things didn’t get easier from there”
While the stigma around the topic of domestic violence was one of many things that made it difficult for the Cavan resident to leave her relationship, the simple recognition of her pain from her friends pushed her to seek help, along with her commitment to her two daughters. “I don’t know if I would have made the jump if I didn’t have my children, but when I saw how deeply they were getting affected, it just kind of changes things for you,” she explained.
While leaving the relationship was difficult enough, Ms O’Brien found that things didn’t get easier from there. Although she noted that she was speaking in the past tense and the system “appears to have changed”, Ms O’Brien said she found the Irish court system to be “very difficult to deal with”. When asked how the court system and An Garda Siochana can help women trying to seek justice, she said that information on how victims should properly go through the steps of reporting abusers, in order to maintain their safety and wellbeing as much as possible, needs to be more readily available.
Support
Ms O’Brien gave an example of this lack of transparency from her journey. She explained that if she had told the judge she was still living at home when she went to court to get her barring order, her ex-husband would have been required to move out. Instead, Ms O’Brien had to relocate to a “dank, wet, cold place” and move her children out of their home because she didn’t know sharing that information would be valuable to her.
“The more easy to access help and support is, the easier it is to avail of it,” she emphasised.
Ms O’Brien received help from Tearmann Domestic Abuse Service, a treatment centre in Co. Monaghan that has now become Safe Ireland’s Cavan-Monaghan service. Much of the counselling and support that Ms O’Brien received throughout her journey was through Tearmann’s services, which is why she chose Safe Ireland to partner with on her cycle. The money will be distributed nationwide through Safe Ireland.“They had counseling one to one, or group counseling,” the Boston native said. “They came to court with us, just for support really. There’s nothing more they could do than really sit with us and make sure we were okay. And unfortunately, there could be five or six women sitting in court each day, to find out what the outcome of what they were going through was going to be”
Simply spreading awareness is enough for Ms O’Brien to feel like her cycle will make an impact”
The feelings of community and sisterhood Ms O’Brien got from being around women with similar experiences were “huge” in her process of healing and processing trauma, a process that she said she is still going through. “Women are expected to do so much and get little credit for it…and be in charge of things and run things and not make mistakes. And if you do make mistakes it’s usually on you,” she explained. “So being with like-minded women and, unfortunately, women who have been through the same thing as you, is so important.”
Speaking to the Cavan resident before she embarks on her cycle, Ms O’Brien said she has already received a lot of attention and encouragement; women messaging her with their own stories of domestic violence, people stopping her on the street to speak about a family member or friend who has gone through the same thing, and locals offering up funds for the cycle or places to stay as Ms O’Brien makes her way to Mizen.
“It’s spreading awareness already…people are saying it to me, I am getting messages.”
Simply spreading awareness is enough for Ms O’Brien to feel like her cycle will make an impact, regardless of her own personal journey, she shared.
“To act like I’m this big strong girl that can do it all, that’s not it, I’m a human being. I don’t know how long it will take me to fully get through this journey, if ever,” Ms O’Brien continued. “Everytime you think you do something right, you just get pulled back a bit, but I’m free of the abuse…my kids are proud of me, I’m raising strong girls.”