Denzil McDaniel: Ashling Murphy murder poses real challenges and problems for us all

Most of us were affected, and the outpouring of grief across Ireland and beyond shows how much this 23-year-old teacher’s death shocked many people to their very core.

At her funeral on Tuesday, the Bishop of Meath, Tom Deenihan said the manner of her death raised many questions of morality for society, particularly our attitude towards women.

Indeed it does, while for the moment the horror is on a human level for the loss of a young woman described as a gift to those who knew her, a gift of joy and love, fun and laughter. A young woman with a talent for music and sport who was loved by her pupils and had a life of goodness ahead of her cut cruelly short.

In the midst of all this, there was another image which I found profoundly disturbing.

In Limerick, close to a protest over Ashling’s death, a 'Men’s Rosary Group' disrupted proceedings with a vigil of their own. The group of older men, whose beliefs include anti-abortion demonstrations, have been conducting protests in towns north and south in recent years, and in Limerick they engaged in their usual practice of kneeling and praying the Rosary over their electronic PA system, turning it up loudly to drown out the vigil in support of Ashling.

At the very least, their lack of empathy for a murdered young woman is depressing, and a suggestion by a defender of the men’s group that the Ashling supporters had turned their vigil into a “Catholic hate” protest only added considerable insult to injury at an incredibly sensitive time.

Everybody is entitled to their beliefs and the expression of them, but as I watched the men chanting their prayers, I thought of the Bible reference to, the Pharisees who believed they would please God by following a long list of religious rules and regulations; but they were described as “whited sepulchres”, outwardly religious but inside full of dead bones.

If your faith doesn’t suggest that love for people means you should maybe show respect to those grieving at the untimely horrible death of a young ray of light, then what is it all about really?

Religion or not, it made me wonder if the world has become an embittered place beyond repair.

The late Ashling Murphy. Photo: PA

Social media has had the effect of pulling back the curtain and revealing a complete failure to tolerate disagreement which in turn fuels an unhealthy anger towards anyone outside of your world view.

How did the UK get to the stage where society’s main focus this week is whether Boris Johnson or Dominic Cummings is lying; you wouldn’t trust either of them and it’s a distraction from the fact Johnson is a misogynist (as well as being a racist and a liar).

During the 2012 Olympics he reported “semi-naked women” playing beach volleyball on Whitehall “glistening like wet otters”. This is just one of his utterances showing a pattern of disrespect towards women.

And last year, Johnson refuted support calls to make misogyny a hate crime saying there is "abundant" existing legislation to tackle violence against women.

Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump’s boast that he grabbed women by the “p***y” didn’t appear to do him any harm at the polls.

So if such attitudes are not an impediment when seeking the highest offices in the free world, we have a long way to go to achieve the hope expressed this week that Ashling’s death “mark the beginning of an end to violence against women".

The culture of misogyny, of course, goes much deeper than the Johnsons and Trumps of this world, and men need to challenge themselves deeply about the culture of attitudes towards women.

Someone once said to me that the difference between attitudes to each other is that men are afraid that a woman will laugh at them, while women are afraid that a man will kill them. A generalisation, I suppose, but it touches on something about the sensitivities of men and women.

As heart-rending as Ashling’s death is, the fact remains that we should see such tragedy coming.

The writer who attempted to defend the Men’s Rosary Group wrote: “There will always be evil people, willing to murder. Despite what politicians and the media say, it’s not in our Irish ‘culture’ to murder and attack women.”

Except that it is far more commonplace than it should be. Between 1996 and 2020, at least 236 women died violently in the Republic, many of them killed in domestic circumstances and other attacked by strangers in broad daylight.

In Northern Ireland, since the pandemic 12 women have been murdered and their names were recalled this week; in England, many will recall the name Sarah Everard because of the horrific circumstances of her kidnap and murder by a serving police officer, but in that country too violent death is perpetrated on women far too often.

Last year the Guardian newspaper launched an “End Femicide” campaign pointing out that stalking, coercive control and pornography lie behind many of the 272 killings of young women in 10 years.

Aside from the many women killed, there are many more suffering violent attacks who survive and there are many many more in domestic circumstances where they live in constant fear of abuse or being controlled.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a number of articles about the work of Fermanagh Women’s Aid and was affected by some of the circumstances which women in our own county are having to tolerate.

Indeed, generally it’s shameful that many women don’t feel safe going for a walk or a run in certain places.

There was a large gathering at Fermanagh House, Enniskillen on Friday 14th January for a candlelit vigil to remember Ashling Murphy. Picture: Ronan McGrade.

So it shouldn’t take the death of a young woman such as Ashling Murphy to waken us up to the fact that there is something fundamentally wrong.

Part of the issue is that when a discussion highlights this situation of women in society, there are invariably calls of “men are attacked too” or dismissive comments of the woke brigade virtue-signalling about feminism. And all the while, this ignores and masks the deeper truth of the abuse of women.

Many men will read this and think that they are not part of the problem; sure, I’ve never been violent with women. And indeed, it is not all men who are disposed to be violent towards women. Of course, it’s not all men, and many everyday relationships are healthy and respectful.

But.

Many men this week have taken a good hard look at themselves and asked if the vulgar sexist attitudes towards women that was accepted as harmless years ago still exists, and if a culture of toxic masculinity contributed to a society where women are fearful.

It’s hard for me as a man to know how to write about this topic, or even if I’m saying the right thing.

But as I watched the coverage this week of the awful death of Ashling Murphy and see the unimaginable grief of her family, friends, colleagues and team mates, I just realised that this is a problem in which we all must play a part in solving.