Bláthnaid Raleigh ‘disappointed’ with response of Mullingar club after conviction of one of its players for rape

Bláthnaid Raleigh has said she is “disappointed” with the response of Mullingar Rugby Club in the wake of the naming of her rapist, Jonathan (Johnny) Moran, a well-known player with the club.

The club did not know about Moran being charged with rape until June, a month after he had been convicted. It has since taken down social media posts about his performances and expelled him from the club following an emergency meeting.

However, Ms Raleigh, who was 19 – the same age as Moran – when he raped her with a bottle in 2019, and who waived her right to anonymity so Moran could be publicly named, has said she is “a little bit disappointed” with the club’s response since he was identified.

“I think they could have used it to send out a positive message to club members, for youth team members, but there is a silence from the club,” Ms Raleigh said.

“They haven’t come out on their own social media, and said, we don’t condone this, we think this is terrible. They sent out a statement to the media, but not to their own, which I think is poor to their other members.”

Ms Raleigh was attacked after going back to a house where Moran was staying with friends when they met during the Galway Arts Festival. Moran was known to her because of her and her family’s involvement in the Mullingar club.

In the years when Moran was awaiting trial, the club did not know what was happening and continued to play Moran in rugby matches, while one of her brothers moved to Tullamore Rugby Club from the Mullingar club so as not to have contact with Moran.

“I think [Moran] kept it extremely quiet,” Ms Raleigh said. But after Moran’s conviction the club “could have acknowledged that his presence in the club would have been very hurtful to me and my family, and used it as a positive thing to condemn his behaviour”.

Ms Raleigh said she has been overwhelmed by the supportive messages she has been receiving since Monday, when Moran was given an eight-year sentence, but is disappointed by the level of contact received from the club, its officials and members.

[ ‘I lost five years of my life waiting for a trial’: Bláthnaid Raleigh describes pain of court delay following rape ]

“I think they could have done better, for their club members. What about for their women’s teams? What message does that send out. I played there as a youth, in their girls’ team. They could have used it as a positive thing and got behind you,” she said.

Mullingar play a game every March against Tullamore, the club her brother moved to. “Every other year my brother didn’t play it but this year he decided he would play it, and if [Moran] is there, he’s there. He was, and he didn’t bat an eyelid. He played the whole game.”

Moran pleaded not guilty and did not give evidence at his trial, and has never explained why he did what he did or express remorse for what he did.

“That kind of eats away at you a little bit. You think, why me? Make it make sense. Make it understandable. I always wished he would turn around and say he had taken something, or it was a moment of madness, and he can’t sleep since it happened, and is horrified. But… nothing,” Ms Raleigh said.

She has been contacted by women who are themselves awaiting the trials of their attackers and are “petrified” by the prospect.

“I just say, it is not a nice process, and it is going to be draining, and you are going to feel extremely tired, but you can do it.”

Ms Raleigh is full of praise for the Rape Crisis Centre, the victim support service and the gardaí who supported her (she is promoting a raffle in support of the Rape Crisis services in Dublin and Tullamore, tickets for which are available online) but says she still found the trial experience “massively re-traumatising”.

“You are sitting in a room and everybody is talking about the most intimate details about you and then in the closing arguments they are giving their opinions on it, and you are sitting there.”

Much of what she found difficult arose from the fact that it was Moran who was on trial, while she, although the victim, was just a witness.

“You are told, this is not your case, this is the [Director of Public Prosecution’s] case, and you are a witness… You don’t know what is happening, what witnesses are being called, you don’t know anything,” Ms Raleigh says.

A request for a comment from Mullingar Rugby Club was met with no response. In June it issued a statement saying it was “deeply shocked and saddened” to learn of Moran’s crime and was “appalled”. The club said it prided itself on promoting a safe environment for its members and was committed to promoting a culture of “zero tolerance for any form of abuse”.