Mother Admits to Years of Child Cruelty in Cork; Daughters Deliver Harrowing Testimony

CORK,  — A 41-year-old woman has pleaded guilty to two counts of child cruelty before Cork Circuit Criminal Court, admitting to years of abusive behaviour that subjected her two daughters to a volatile and dangerous home environment.

The case, which came to light in 2023 following a late-night emergency call from the older daughter, revealed disturbing details of neglect, violence, and emotional trauma spanning multiple years. The woman, whose identity is withheld to protect the victims, will be sentenced on May 14. She has been remanded on bail until that date.

During Wednesday’s hearing, both daughters—now in their teens—shared deeply emotional victim impact statements, outlining the profound and lasting effects of their childhood experiences. The court heard that one of the mother’s former partners physically assaulted the older girl, at one point choking her and causing her to strike her head on kitchen tiles. Despite this, the woman allowed him to return to the household.

The older daughter recalled numerous violent incidents and a persistent sense of fear and abandonment, stating: “She picked and chose when I deserved any crumb of love. I lived in constant fear. She chose drugs over me, strange men over me, and violence over me.”

She described resorting to self-harm at just eight years old as a coping mechanism. “Each scar is a memory, a moment when I couldn’t hold the pain inside,” she told the court.

The younger sister, whose statement was read into the record, said she learned to suppress her own emotions to avoid upsetting their mother. “One day, she’d tell me how much she loved me, and the next she’d say the opposite. Because of this, I’ve always struggled to trust kindness,” she said, adding, “All I really want is for my mom to get help—the kind of real help she needs.”

The court heard that the girls were malnourished, suffering from poor hygiene, and had missed significant amounts of school before being removed from the home. They are now living with relatives and are reported to be thriving in their new environment.

The mother, described by her defence counsel Elizabeth O’Connell SC as “sober and stable” at the time of the hearing, expressed remorse and “devastating shame” for the harm caused to her children.

Judge Dermot Sheehan was informed that the initial emergency call in 2023 involved the woman being intoxicated and allegedly wielding a samurai sword while chasing a man through the house—an incident that finally brought the ongoing abuse to official attention.

The woman pleaded guilty to two counts of cruelty under the Children’s Act for conduct likely to cause unnecessary suffering or injury to health or to seriously impact the well-being of her daughters, covering a period between 2021 and 2023. The charges refer to a three-year period for the older daughter, and a shorter span for the younger child.

Sentencing will be delivered later this month.