‘It can happen to anyone’

In the seven years since her estranged husband tried to kill her, Pauline Tully has been elected as a TD for Sinn Féin in Cavan-Monaghan and been a tower of her strength for her two sons – now 14 and 11.

While most TDs worry about their latest performance in the polls or their prospects of getting re-elected, Pauline is instead preparing herself for Pearse McAuley’s release from prison. He is due out on June 25 – just over seven years and six months to the day he stabbed her repeatedly while her children were present in the family home they once shared near Kilnaleck.

Although sentenced to 12 years with the last two suspended, given remission, the prominent Republican and convicted garda killer will be walking the streets within months.

The horrifying 2014 Christmas Eve attack lasted two and a half hours. During that time, Pauline was stabbed 13 times, sustained four broken fingers, a punctured lung and only escaped with her life when a drunken McAuley fell asleep, but not before he had forced their two young boys to say goodbye to their mother.

Pauline Tully was back in that same kitchen two weeks ago when she heard on the news that a young teacher from near Tullamore, Ashling Murphy, had been attacked and killed while out running. It’s moments like these that take her right back to the attack again.

“I thought ‘Oh God, not another woman’… I suppose it’s a feeling I get every time I hear of a woman being killed whether it’s in the home, particularly in the home, but even on the street: Here we go again, this is still happening,” Pauline told the Celt this week.

In the outcry that followed, Sinn Féin tabled a motion against gender-based violence; while the government also made statements on the issue – a discussion welcomed by Pauline.

She was uplifted that parties and TDs united on the important issue and in memory of Ashling and others like her.

“Lots of women spoke, men did speak as well obviously, but a lot of women spoke on the issue, both on the statement and the motion. They recalled some of their own experiences and experiences of women known to them. I thought it was very powerful but it’s no good unless it’s followed by action,” Pauline says.

She welcomes the commitment by government to a “zero tolerance” approach to gender-based violence and looks forward to the publication of a new government strategy to combat domestic, sexual and gender based violence, promised by Justice Minister Helen McEntee in March of this year.

Enough’s enough!

On behalf of all victims of domestic violence, Pauline wants to see action.

“We have had strategies before. They haven’t made a difference. They need to be properly resourced and it needs to be multi-pronged, for example providing education in our schools and our clubs. Discussions need to be had with young boys and young adults as well. Men need to stand up and say ‘Enough’s enough!’”

The local TD’s encouraging men to be brave and speak out against so-called “locker room talk” if others are making disrespectful comments to or about women.

“It’s time that they did say ‘that’s not appropriate, you shouldn’t be speaking about women like that, you shouldn’t be sharing photographs’, whatever it may be,” she said.

Pauline also says the authorities need to take complaints more seriously, referring to an ongoing independent investigation that some ‘999’ calls were ‘cancelled’.

The focus of the probe concerns more than 200,000 emergency calls between 2019 and 2020 — over 3,000 of which related to alleged domestic violence — had been improperly cancelled.

While describing the gardaí who responded to her attack as “wonderful”, Pauline said not all victims are taken seriously.

“There are lots of guards who don’t take it seriously or don’t take it seriously enough,” she said.

The TD also feels more gender balance is needed on the bench where most judges are still male.

She describes some of the sentences handed down to perpetrators as “outrageous” calling for mandatory prison terms for those found guilty rather than suspended sentences or light sentences in cases where women were seriously assaulted, hospitalised and suffered mental anguish for a time after.

“I just think that gives the wrong message completely so I think we have to look at mandatory sentences and there has to be a deterrent somewhere and I don’t feel as if there is enough of a deterrent at the moment.”

Access

Access to children by perpetrators is another matter Pauline feels strongly about and something she expects to face in the near future.

She believes if barring or protection orders are in place, they should be taken into account by the Family Law Courts at access hearings.

“If violence has taken place, I don’t think it’s fair to give the children to the person who perpetrated the violence. What’s to stop him being violent to the children? They also could end up using the children to get back at the mother…

“So I think that has to be looked at and I know many women who, every time they have to give their child over to their violent ex-partner, they’re just a bag of nerves until the child comes back to them,” reveals Pauline.

She admits trying to protect her children from the first violent episode in her marriage before she and McAuley ultimately split up. “I had this thing in my mind. I was fully sure that he wouldn’t harm me in front of the children and that he wouldn’t harm them but obviously I was proven wrong with that. He did harm me and threaten to hurt them too at the time,” she recalls.

With McAuley’s release date nearing, does Pauline feel safe?

“There’s nothing I can do about it. He’s served his time. He’s going to be out and all I can hope for is that he will keep his distance. He will respect the Protection Order that’s in place and leave me and the children alone.

“I am not naïve enough to think that he won’t look for access to the boys but I’m hoping that he will do that through the courts, which is the proper way to do it, and then that he will respect the decision of the court, whatever that might be, which I hope will be based on what the boys want.”

Be vigilant

Pauline reveals that she has had no direct contact with Pearse McAuley since he tried to kill her.

“I haven’t spoken to him. It’s all been through solicitors.”

Pauline has been obliged by law to send him school reports every year and, in order to get his agreement to get passports for the boys, she also had to agree to send him a photo of the boys every year.

They are now legally separated. Pauline filed for divorce two years ago but that has been held up by Covid. She’s hopeful the divorce will be finalised before McAuley is released.

The boys still remember the attack, though Pauline tried to shield them from the trauma.

“They do remember and would talk sometimes about it. After the attack, when I was still in hospital, the boys were staying with my sister. The guards took a statement off my eldest son, he was only seven and a half, and they were saying they couldn’t believe how good it was, that he was really good at remembering and could describe what happened,” she said.

Given the increased media attention in recent weeks, Pauline says the boys are somewhat exposed again but feels it’s important to speak out.

“I was on the Tonight Show last week. I had an interview with Claire Brock and they watched it with me. They talked about it [the attack] a little bit after that. They will at times talk about it and they will remember bits and pieces. I am just hoping that they are not going to be too worried or too nervous when he gets out. I am trying to say to them ‘there’s no point worrying about things, we just have to get on with our lives’. We’re worrying about something that might never happen. You just have to be vigilant and have a plan in place,” she said.

Asked how she feels now, Pauline remains firm and strong.

“I was determined that it was not going to stop me and I was going to make sure that things got back to normal as quickly as possible and that I would provide a good life for the two children and that they would be the least effected that I could make it; that they would be okay and supported. I was very conscious that I had to be strong for them because, if I fell apart, they didn’t have anyone basically to look after them.

“I am okay. Every now and then I will think of things or flashbacks will come to me if I see something on the telly that reminds me of it but, for the most part, I am doing well.”

Pauline is a little more hesitant when asked about the lasting impact of the whole ordeal and admits it’s the ‘what ifs’ that sometimes sneak up on her.

“Once I got over the physical injuries, I moved back to the house… It was hard to go back to the house but I was determined ‘this is my home and the longer I leave it, the worse it’s going to be to go back’. So I went back quite quickly and I went back to school to teach within six weeks once I was able to drive.

“There’s been times when I wouldn’t sleep great or I’d be thinking ‘what if something else had happened’ but there’s no point in doing that. What’s happened happened and I have accepted it and I have to move on…

“Things could have been very different…” she trails off.

Bringing the conversion back to domestic violence generally, the question is posed: Do concerns about access present a barrier to women from leaving a dangerous domestic environment?

While emphasising that there are a combination of reasons why a victim doesn’t leave, Pauline admits fear is a contributing factor.

“A frequent threat by men in that situation is ‘If you leave me, I’ll kill you’ and I’ve had it myself and obviously he did try to do it but women are often told ‘if you split up with me, I’ll burn the house down around you’ or I’ll do this or do that.

“So sometimes women think, for the sake of their children to keep them safe, they stay with the person,” surmises Pauline.

However, she references how undermined, isolated and powerless victims in these situations can feel.

“They almost feel it’s their fault. They’ve [the perpetrator] often cut them off from family supports and from friends and so on so they’re isolated… They can feel so undermined, have no confidence or self belief that they think - this is all I deserve. I brought that on myself.”

Did Pearse McAuley threaten to kill her before that Christmas Eve?

“Oh he did, yes,” admits Pauline but she never really believed he would try to do it.

They had separated, he had access to the boys, he was in a new relationship and she thought he had moved on and was content.

“While he made the threats while we were together, as time went by, I didn’t actually think that he would fulfil that threat at that stage,” recalls Pauline.

But critics are always quick to point out that she married a convicted murderer while he was still in prison – serving a sentence for killing Detective Garda Jerry McCabe in an IRA raid in 1996. Shouldn’t she have seen something like this coming?

“Obviously I didn’t see it coming because I would never have married him if I had. The same goes for any woman who ends up marrying someone who ends up being violent towards her… It is a form of victim blaming in a way.

“There is no way I would have predicted he was like that. Even he would have shown disdain for anyone who was involved in something like that. I am sure that anyone involved in a domestic violence situation doesn’t go out to be that way, it just something that happens over time.

“I would have thought he wasn’t that kind at all. We had a good relationship and, yes, when I look back now, there are signs I can see of possessiveness and controlling behaviour but, again, I put it down to the fact that he was in prison… and I thought that things would change when he was released,” Pauline responds.

She adds that there are many ex-prisoners who are not violent to women or who don’t perpetrate these types of crimes.

“The reason I have spoken out is to get across the message that it can happen to anyone.”

Asked what she would say, if she came face to face with him, Pauline pauses, before replying firmly: “Nothing, I don’t have anything to say to him. I don’t want to ever have to speak to him again or see him again.”