The Mayo man spoke out about the abuse his cousin inflicted. He hopes it can inspire more men to share stories
For 13 years, Dylan Gallagher kept his cousin’s secret. He was just nine when 15-year-old Noel raped him in a shed on the family farm.
Noel Gallagher (33) of Dadreen, Louisburgh, Mayo, pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to the anal rape of Dylan Gallagher (27) in Louisburgh on a date between October 2006 and March 2007. A jury found him unanimously guilty and he was sentenced to four years in jail earlier this month.
“After he raped me, he said: ‘We’ll keep this secret, don’t tell anyone.’ He said it in an aggressive way. I was only nine. I did keep his secret, for 13 years. Until I couldn’t keep it any longer,” Dylan revealed.
“My life was being destroyed by keeping it in, from the day it happened. It’s the best thing I ever did, telling people. It was killing me. I lost 13 years of my life to that secret. I think it can be difficult for men who have been raped to come forward and speak out. That’s how I felt about it when I was younger, as if I had done something wrong.
Noel mentioned the word sex and I remember I laughed. I just knew it as a bad word
“On the drive home with my family after he raped me, I remember just staring out the window of our car. Nothing was ever the same again.”
The events of the day are forever etched in Dylan’s memory. It was a Sunday and after mass he had lunch with his family and then they drove out to see his grandparents, who lived about 45 minutes away. Two of Dylan’s uncles and their families lived beside his grandparents and he would often call to them during the course of a family visit.
“I went to one of my uncle’s houses and after about 20 minutes Noel said: ‘Will we go down to the sheds?’ So we went down to look at the animals and stuff. There were cows in the shed and blocks of silage, which are fed to the cows at a certain time of year. Noel mentioned the word sex and I remember I laughed. I just knew it as a bad word.
“He told me to bend over a block of silage and then suddenly he was putting his penis in my anus. I asked him to stop, I kept asking him. When he was finished, he tried to get me to do it to him. But I was only nine.
“He got angry then, very aggravated, and he raped me again. It only lasted 10 to 15 seconds. I just remember telling him, ‘stop, stop, stop’. He didn’t.”
In the aftermath, all that was clear in Dylan’s mind was that he wasn’t allowed tell anyone. Given his young age, he tried to “bury” the attack in his subconscious, with little understanding of what happened.
“But it had an impact immediately. Even at that young age, I’d be depressed for days. I just didn’t properly understand what had been done to me.”
As much as he could over the next few years, Dylan avoided going to his grandparents’ house in case he might come into contact with his cousin. But around two years after the rape, there was no avoiding him. At a family wedding, the then 11-year-old knew Noel would be present and tried his best to avoid him.
By the time Dylan reached his mid-teens a full comprehension of what his cousin had done sank in. The realisation he had been raped led him to alcohol to try and numb the memory.
“By 15 my drinking had got out of hand,” he said. “It caused all kinds of other problems in my life. Myself and my Dad, we just couldn’t get along. He wanted me to help on the farm but I wouldn’t. I just had no interest in anything because of what had happened.
“From the age of nine to 22 or 23 when I finally told my parents, those years were just lost. In my mid-teens was when I started joining together the dots of what happened to me. I became suicidal. It was impacting every part of my life.
In my head I was saying: ‘I don’t want to be here’
“I was a great footballer, but that went by the wayside because of my drinking. I failed exams in my Junior Cert and Leaving Cert. I still managed to get into college to study quantity surveying. I deferred it for a year and then went. It was a chance for me to be away from home.”
But leaving home didn’t mean Dylan left his trauma behind. His emotional problems only got worse.
“I was suicidal before I went to college. But then my drinking and taking drugs got a lot worse. I was trying to overdose. I was taking drugs with the hope I would die. In my head I was saying: ‘I don’t want to be here.’ I met friends in college that I have for life, but I still never told anyone.”
By the time Dylan had completed his degree and returned to Mayo, his cousin Noel — who had relocated to Australia a few years after the rape — had also come home. It was 2019.
Knowing his attacker was now living in his community worsened Dylan’s mental health.
“I was friends with him on Snapchat. I was out one night, I’d been drinking, and on Snapchat I called him ‘a gay c*** and a gay w***er’. He just wrote under my comment: ‘What are you on about?’ Then another night not long after that, I actually saw him out. That really triggered me. I was 21 or 22. I just knew then that I couldn’t keep it in anymore.”
That’s who inspired me to come forward, my cousin Danielle
Around this time, Dylan’s cousin Danielle Gallagher was struggling with an almost identical problem. She had just come forward and made allegations that her cousins Aidan and Thomas Gallagher — Noel’s older brothers — had raped her at their Mayo home when she was a child. The news sent shockwaves through the Gallagher family.
‘I remember my Mam asking me, did I believe what Danielle was saying. I curled up into the couch and thought, ‘it’s not just me’. But I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. So I lied to my Mam and said: ‘I don’t think so.’
“But that’s who inspired me to come forward, my cousin Danielle. We weren’t close at the time, we are now. One thing we haven’t spoken about much is what actually happened to us.”
A couple of weeks later, on Christmas Eve 2019, Dylan found the strength to tell his parents what had happened.
“They were shocked, very supportive and believed me immediately. It took until November the following year before I felt ready to make a complaint to gardaí.”
In October last year, brothers Aidan Gallagher and Thomas Gallagher were sentenced to a total of seven years in prison for the rape and sexual abuse of their cousin Danielle at their home between 1999 and 2003.
For 13 years, my life was ruined. But not any more
After his conviction for raping Dylan earlier this summer, Noel Gallagher joined his elder brothers at the Midlands Prison on remand until his recent sentencing. A security source described it as “unprecedented” to have three brothers jailed simultaneously and housed at the same prison for two separate rape crimes.
All three brothers have denied they raped their cousins or shown any remorse. Both Danielle and Dylan chose to waive their right to anonymity so their cousins could be named.
Dylan praised all the gardaí involved in his case, in particular detective Anna-Marie McHale. Facing his cousin in court was a harrowing experience, he said.
“I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years. My legs went from beneath me nearly. Being cross-examined, it was torture. But I was ready for it. I wasn’t lying, I was telling the truth. So I was confident in that way. But it is a horrible place to be, you feel as though you are on trial.
“There was a massive sense of relief when he was found unanimously guilty. I finally got my justice.”
People have begun to reach out to Dylan, some anonymously, to tell him they too have suffered sexual violence and kept it hidden. He hopes that by speaking out, more people might find the strength to come forward.
“Because bottling it up is the worst thing you can do. What happened to me, I can remember it very clearly. It will never leave my head. For 13 years, my life was ruined. But not any more.
“I do believe it can be harder for men and I just want all men to know, if I can do it, you can. You don’t have to stay in the darkness.”
If you have been affected by any of the issues in this article, call the Rape Crisis Centre on Freephone 1800 77 88 88
