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Trish Kearney has described being so ensnared by George Gibney that she was unable to report the abuse.
The writer was 13 when she joined the Trojan Swimming Club where George Gibney was a coach.
Her life changed forever after he began abusing her until she left the swimming world at age 19.
She has now written a memoir titled Above Water about her life and her story of surviving abuse.
Speaking to
Alive and Kicking with Clare McKenna, Trish said she has mixed emotions about taking control of her story with the book, but it was a thrill to see it published.
Trish Kearney was just 13 and a promising swimmer when George Gibney, the internationally recognised coach, began to abuse her. The process of control, entrapment and sexual abuse carried on for years. Finally, she escaped him and moved on, somehow managing to suppress the horrific memories deep inside. Until one day, a letter from a fellow swimmer brought those memories back to the surface. Here, she recalls that time.
Trish Kearney was just 13 and a promising swimmer when George Gibney, the internationally recognised coach, began to abuse her. The process of control, entrapment and sexual abuse carried on for years. Finally, she escaped him and moved on, somehow managing to suppress the horrific memories deep inside. Until one day, a letter from a fellow swimmer brought those memories back to the surface. Here, she recalls that time.
George Gibney
The real George Gibney, the one who abused dozens of children throughout the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, has been described as Irish sport’s most enduring villain. He was, and still is, the one that got away. The former Olympic coach fled the country in the 1990s after the Irish courts said he could not face trial because too much time had elapsed since the allegations of child abuse were made.
Gibney’s story is one that has floated in and out of the Irish national consciousness over the decades, with various documentaries and articles, and even one book, covering it. But while each of these brought the case to renewed media prominence for a time, it was the runaway success of a recent podcast series listened to by more than one million people that has catapulted Gibney and his heinous crimes back into the limelight. This time, some of those crimes might just stick.
Thirteen-year-old Patricia McCahill is standing on the diving block, focused on making the changes to her breaststroke that she has been working so hard on.