A woman who was raped on the day of her First Holy Communion by her brother has said she feared her mother would have been killed if she told anyone what her brother had been doing to her.
Rebecca Holohan (42) from Portlaw, Co Waterford was rapped by her brother Stephen now (49) from the age of 4 until she was 10 or 12.
Speaking to Eamon Keane on' Deise Today' the mother of one said her father used to keep a gun in his closet for hunting, which was never locked away and when her brother grew older, he threatened to kill her mother with the gun if she told anyone about the abuse.
Teary-eyed, she said; "One day, I was upstairs and Stephen went into my parent's room and called me, he was standing there holding the gun at the door and said to me that if I ever told anyone, he was going to shoot my mother."
As a result of her brother threataning her mother, Ms Holohan was forced to remain quite about her abuse.
"I would eat paper thinking it was going to make me put on weight, newspaper, magazines, copy books from school, thinking my weight would ballon and I would be so digusting to him that he would stop and leave me alone but he didnt."
Mr Lennon was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury last May on 56 counts of rape and 15 of indecent assault on dates between December 1983 and December 1986 at the family home and other locations.
He was sentenced last July by Justice Creedon to 5 years in prison, with the final 12 months suspended on strict conditions, including that he complete a sex offenders programme in custody.
Ms Holohan has waved her anonymity so her brother can be named.
Listen to her emotional and shocking interview with Eamon below.
Listeners are advised that the following contains a graphic account of sexual abuse.
https://soundcloud.com/wlrfmwaterford/rebecca-holohan-speaks-on-how-she-was-sexual-abused-by-her-brother-stephen-when-she-was-a-child
