Sarah Harte: Domestic killings rooted in male control and entitlement, not mental illness

Irish Examiner

4 days ago

Last week felt like another dark week for Irish women.
On Saturday, driving to Cork, I listened to comedian Alison Spittle on the Brendan O'Connor Show. I once approached her in the bathrooms of the Irish Film Institute to tell her how much I enjoyed her work. She was very polite but looked vaguely startled.
I now have context for why. During the interview, Spittle detailed her weight struggles, but more particularly, how countless times people have accosted her to tell her that she was "a fat bitch".
In one incident, a woman insulted her, but mainly it seemed to be men who let her know she was unattractive to them and therefore worthless as a woman in their eyes.
She has been insulted on public transport and had chewing gum thrown in her hair, which is technically an assault. While asserting she didn't care, she broke down in tears, and O'Connor gently probed her on how it seemed she did care. She admitted she did. It was painful to contemplate the sustained misogyny she has endured as she tries to live her life.
In a radio interview, Alison Spittle detailed her weight struggles, but more particularly, how countless times people have accosted her to tell her that she was 'a fat bitch'. Picture: Karla Gowlett
Of course, the kind of social system that creates the perfect environment for men to harass Alison Spittle is precisely the same system that allows domestic and sexual violence to thrive — one which is based on misogyny, entitlement, domination, and devaluation of women and girls.
Let's stick with last week. On Monday, 53-year-old Stephen Mooney from Kilbarrack Road was sentenced to life for the murder of his wife Anna Mooney, 43, in June 2023, when he stabbed her to death at their home with a kitchen knife.
Mooney initially pleaded not guilty to killing Anna, but entered a guilty plea when he changed his plea after gardaí found footage of the murder on a mobile phone he had set up to spy on her. He believed she was having an affair.
On Wednesday, a domestic violence colleague messaged me to alert me to the triple shooting of Vanessa Whyte, a vet originally from Co Clare, her son James, 14, and daughter Sara, 13, in Maguiresbridge, Co Fermanagh.
Ian Rutledge, Vanessa's husband and the father of her two children, the only suspect in the murder investigation, died on Monday as a result of self-inflicted gun wounds.
A prayer service was held over the weekend for Ms Whyte and her children in Barefield, Ennis. Parish priest Fr Tom Fitzpatrick said: "We cannot rationalise what should never have taken place."
At another vigil held at the weekend, Fr Brian Darcy, who knew the family in Fermanagh, calling for better mental health services, said: 'There's nothing we can say that can make sense of something as senseless as this.'
I understand that being a priest is ultra challenging in these situations. However, this triple murder will have to be 'rationalised' to see what lessons can be learned to identify red flags which might help in preventing other similar murders.
It's part of our cultural storytelling that killers in domestic homicides snap and lose control. International experts unanimously agree they do not result from a spontaneous burst of anger or a loss of control on the part of the perpetrator, as is commonly believed. It comes from a core belief in male power and control over women.
It is proving extremely difficult to reverse this belief, not least because the media too often unconsciously reinforce this narrative. It has already been reported Ian Rutledge was depressed and losing his sight.
It was similar in the Alan Hawe case. There was an attempt to minimise what he did to his wife, Clodagh, and three children, who were murdered in cold blood. Or at least to present reasons as to why he was having a hard time and was essentially a good egg who snapped.
We persist in reaching for an explanation like the poor fella hadn't been himself or was under terrible pressure. This prevents grappling with the hard fact that underpinning these murders is a belief that didn't come from nowhere, that women are men's property.
Because here's the thing — if you are depressed and choose to take your own life, while it is tragic, what gives you the right to take your wife and children with you?
On Thursday, a former Irish soldier, Keith Byrne, 34, was jailed for 15 years for strangling his girlfriend of eight months, Kirsty Ward, 36, to death at a Spanish hotel in July 2023 with a hair straightening cord. Ms. Ward had told him she was leaving him.
Kirsty Ward was killed in Spain by her boyfriend.
Bryne was also handed a restraining order preventing him from contacting Kirsty's teenage son, mum, or siblings, or going within 1,000m of them for 25 years.
Byrne claimed during his trial that Kirsty Ward took her own life. Javier Goimil, a Spanish public prosecutor and domestic violence specialist who had sought a 20-year sentence, refuted this claim.
In his powerful closing speech to the jury, he said Byrne had decided: 'You're mine or you're nobody's... You, woman, are no one to say you're going to detach yourself from me the man and have your own independent life.'
We know men often kill women because they are losing control over the victim. Perpetrators can't handle loss of control, in part because, personality type aside, societally we have taught men from the cradle that control over a woman is their right.
Byrne also released a video from his prison cell, claiming his innocence and referring to Kirsty Ward as 'the girl'. He took her life, then he tried to take her identity by referring to a 36-year-old mother, Kirsty, of a 14-year-old son, Evan (when she died), the daughter of Jackie and John, as 'the girl'. An irrelevant nothing.
Misogyny and violence take place along a continuum of behaviour ranging from throwing gum and insults on a train to stalking, strangling, or stabbing a woman to death. I was struck by an interview given by Amy Hunt to the BBC last month, in which she spoke about the epidemic of misogyny in society.
Court artist drawing of Kyle Clifford, who was convicted of killing Carol Hunt, 61, the wife of John Hunt, and two of their daughters, Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25.
Last year, her mother and two sisters, the wife and daughters of BBC racing commentator John Hunt, were murdered in their own home by her youngest sister's ex-boyfriend, Kyle Clifford, 26, two weeks after she ended the relationship.
Amy pointed out how our society 'allows misogyny to fester', how it 'emboldens misogyny'.
The Irish women whose faces we saw in the news cycle last week, and Amy's mother, Carol, 61, and sisters, Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25, are not just statistics. As Amy pointed out, these murdered women are flesh and blood people who were murdered in the prime of life by men who unilaterally decided their time was up.
The statistics, and not just in Ireland, are massively skewed in terms of men killing their female partners and not the other way around.
It feels like howling into the void to repeat the statistics for domestic, sexual, and gender-based violence are genuinely terrifying. I can't help wondering if we would be so slow to act if women were routinely harassing men in the public space, raping them, and murdering them in their own homes?
Amy Hunt, who gave a brilliant interview, got to the heart of the matter. 'We've got a serious obligation as a society to change men's behaviour because this is a man's issue — it's not a woman's issue.'
I'll leave the last word to Amy because I couldn't put it better. 'It's a question of what sort of world we are comfortable living in.'