We opened our anonymous form for just 24 hours. Over 250 of you answered.

On Monday, the 14th of October, we asked our female readers a question: Do you feel safe in public spaces? Male violence against women is one of the most pressing issues in Ireland right now, so we offered our readers the opportunity to share their experiences to help highlight the severity of this issue and inform our reporting.

The form was open for just 24 hours, and 260 of you shared your experiences on the streets of Ireland. The accounts of what our readers had experienced were horrific, often violent, and pointed to an overarching issue: men are making women feel unsafe in public spaces. Women who filled out the form consistently reported being followed, locked in taxis, threatened, harassed, catcalled, sexually assaulted, and men exposing their genitalia to them. This is not an issue specific to one area or one time of day. While the majority of the accounts highlighted Dublin streets at night, there were reports of women feeling unsafe all over the country and at all times of day.

For many women living in Ireland, this news will, sadly, not come as a surprise. In 2023, National Rape Crisis reported the highest ever level of contacts to the helpline over the year. The Central Statistics Office’s Sexual Violence Survey revealed that 28% of women had experienced sexual harassment in the past 12 months, and almost nine in ten adults (87%) who experienced sexual harassment reported that the perpetrator was a man.

These instances of harassment and gender based violence can have lasting effects on the way women feel in public spaces, and decisions they can make every day. We asked our readers how their experiences impacted them afterwards. Consistently, women who answered the form cited being terrified to go out at night to socialise, and multiple women shared that they now avoided going out all together, particularly if they knew they wouldn’t have a man with them. Others reported shopping online to avoid public spaces in the day time, spending money they can’t afford on taxis to avoid nighttime public transport, and generally fearing that something bad will happen while out at night.

Women in Ireland deserve to feel safe. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be unpacking the issue, sharing the themes that have emerged, speaking to experts, and look to the future at what needs to be done to make Ireland’s public spaces safer for women.

Elsewhere on District: Record Levels of Domestic Abuse Recorded in Ireland