SINS of the Father, a book by local survivor of sexual abuse Shaneda Daly has just hit the shelves.
In 2011 Shaneda’s father Harry, who worked as a prison officer for years and who is formerly of Lanna, Lisycasey, pleaded guilty to 227 sample charges of offences including rape, indecent assault and sexual assault.
While he received a 15-year sentence, in reality the time served was far shorter and Shaneda has been a prominent voice in recent years, seeking reform and mandatory sentencing.
Shaneda had been faced with very frequent sexual abuse from the age of five until she turned 17 and moved out of home.
In an interview with the Clare Champion in 2018 she said, “When I was 17, me and my brother had a fight. I went down to the Garda station and it came out in the Garda Station. The next day my father left the house for a year, supposedly to get therapy.
“Then he came back and he seemed like a really nice guy, he wasn’t violent or abusive anymore. The abuse was never spoken about again.
“We all lived happily ever after until I was 26 and a mother of three and he sexually assaulted me again. But this time I told him to eff off.”
Her mother still supported her father, and it was only several years later that Shaneda brought charges, worried that another family member could be preyed on.
“I was excluded from the family but when I was 35 or 36 I found out that he was grooming somebody else that I was very close to in the family and the only way I could stop him was by pressing charges.”
She had a ghostwriter, Linda Watson Brown, who got in touch with her in 2018 when Shaneda was lobbying for heavier sentences.
“We met on Twitter. It was a few years ago now, I had met with the Minister for Justice about mandatory sentencing, and I put it up on Twitter. I put that up and Linda wrote to me.
“I saw she had written loads of books and she asked how I’d feel about a book and I said I didn’t know about that.
“We were chatting like that for a long time and then a year and a half ago she said she had got a publisher that was interested in my story, they had never released a book in Ireland before, this would be the first one.”
Linda was very helpful in bringing her back to the book, when her focus was slipping.
“She kind of knew the way I am, that sometimes I’d be very enthusiastic and sometimes my anxiety will drag me back. She was a firm but gentle hand with me.
“Some days I’d be saying I’m too tired, I don’t want to do it and she’d be saying come on, you have to do it. She was brilliant.”
She says the abuse she suffered for so long is never very far from her mind, so she didn’t have to search too deeply for the material. Was the process of writing the book in any way cathartic for her?
“At the time obviously it was going to be a bit traumatic but now I’m so glad I did it. The journey never ends with the abuse, but it becomes easier.”
The book has been on sale in Ireland for around two weeks now and she is delighted with the feedback.
“It’s been overwhelming. The amount of people that have been writing to me on Facebook, then people in my family were ringing me and saying it was a page turner, they couldn’t put it down.
“One of my cousins forgot to cook her kid’s dinner because she was so engrossed in the book. My aunts and my cousins in Dublin, they’re my rocks and they all said it was brilliant.”
As a mother of six with four grandchildren now she tends to be very busy, while she is also involved in helping survivors.
“I started up a Facebook page Survivors Side by Side and it has just risen and risen. There’s about 1,900 people on it. It’s just for support and advice.
“I always say the page is ours, its not mine. We all help each other.”
She has campaigned for mandatory sentencing, and feels that while progress is very slow, there are some causes for optimism.
“Nothing happens in a hurry in this country and it is annoying. Slowly but surely things do happen though. Once you realise it’s not all going to happen in a year and little things do happen, so there is something of a change.”
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.