‘Staying silent only enables the abuser’

Kirsty Fitzpatrick was in her early twenties when she first met an Athlone man who is now serving a five years and three months jail sentence for subjecting his former partner to what was described in Mullingar Circuit Court as “a savage beating” with a golf club and a wooden plank.

The court case heard in July of last year that the accused, 39-year-old Mark Conway, with an address at Marine View, Athlone, was in “a state of alcoholic blackout” when he launched the attack on his partner and that he had to be pepper sprayed before Gardai were able to arrest him after the incident on February 16, 2024.

The brave young woman at the centre of this terrifying incident of domestic violence openly admits that, despite the presence of what she knows to be “numerous red flags” in her relationship, she made the mistake of staying silent in the misguided hope that her former partner would change.

Kirsty Fitzpatrick said she has decided to speak out about her experience in the hopes that it may encourage other women in similar situations to “get out before it's too late.”

Speaking from her new home in Spain, where she says she is now living a life she “could only dream of”, the brave 27-year-old says she is in “no doubt whatsoever” that she would have died on the day she was attacked by her former partner but for her quick action in barricading herself into a bedroom by pushing the bed up against the door.

Kirsty freely admits that she she chose to stay silent and ignore all the warning signs in her relationship in the misguided hope that “things would change.” She now believes that this course of action “almost cost me my life” and wants to get the message out there that “abusers do not change” and that “staying silent only enables the abuser”.

“You hear a lot of stories about other people being in abusive relationships but you never think its going to happen to you, but it did happen to me, and at the time I got involved with my former partner I knew nothing about terms like red flags, lovebombing, coercive control or anything like that as I had no experience of it, but I knew there was something not right and I chose to stay silent and that was my biggest mistake,” she now says.

At the outset of her relationship, Kirsty Fitzpatrick said her partner was very attentive, but “bit by bit” she became increasingly isolated and was never allowed to go anywhere alone. “He used to accuse me of cheating and would go through my phone and my Facebook and eventually he said I didn't need a phone at all,” she says. “Looking back on it now, I was never on my own, he literally went everywhere with me.”

Even though her partner had “serious issues with alcohol consumption” and most of the incidents of domestic abuse she was subjected during her four years with him took place when he had drank to excess, she says she always forgave him and said nothing. “I suppose I felt sorry for him and felt that if I said nothing I was somehow protecting him.”

Kirsty admits she kept “holding onto the good times in the hopes that the would outweigh the bad times” but adds that “they never did.”

She says things just kept getting “progressively worse” to the point where she felt “totally isolated and trapped” and felt she had “nowhere to go.”

Last year's court case heard that Mark Conway was on bail at the time he attacked his former partner with a golf club and a wooden floorboard, and he had 21 previous convictions, including 15 for public order offences, two for criminal damage, one for burglary, two for theft, and one for possession of knives.

Kirsty Fitzpatrick appeared at the initial court case via video link and told the court that she had to change her phone number because Mr Conway breached his bail conditions and continued to harass and threaten her, she said.

“I'm not in court today as I fled the country in fear,” she told the court. “He said if I changed my name or the colour of my hair, he’d still find me. He said if I ever stepped foot in Athlone again, he’d tear me apart and that I’d always be looking over my shoulder,” she added.

Even though it has taken her two years to get justice – with the finalisation of the court case in January of this year and the sentencing of her former partner – Kirsty Fitzpatrick says “I'm glad I did what I did,” and adds, “I named him and shamed him.”

She would strongly urge other women trapped in a cycle of domestic violence to “get out” and report their abuser to the authorities. “Love shouldn't hurt and I am finally living a life where my every move is not being controlled or monitored. ”Kirsty believes that staying silent in an abusive relationship “hands the power right back to the abuser” and the longer this pattern of behaviour continues “the more the abuser will try to get away with.” She feels “very lucky” to have escaped her abuser, and says she can now look forward to a future where she is finally in control of her own life.