Books

Book review: Harrowing account of rape and repeated trauma at the hands of the IRA

Cahill’s uncompromising account of her abuse should make any Sinn Féin supporter feel deeply uncomfortable

Máiría Cahill. While her case has sometimes been treated like a political football, her harrowing blow-by-blow narrative in this book reclaims it as a human rights scandal

Máiría Cahill once counted Gerry Adams as a fan of her prose skills. When her great-uncle Joe (a founding member of the Provisional IRA) died in 2004, she penned an article about him for An Phoblacht. Sinn Féin’s then leader met her at a Christy Moore concert and urged her to keep writing, adding in Irish, “dáirire [seriously]”.

If Adams is ever brave enough to read Cahill’s truly disturbing memoir, he may well regret giving ...