Ms Elaine Moore says she is furious that she was detained for three months by the British authorities on terrorist charges which were dropped last week.
At a press conference in Dublin Airport after she returned to Ireland on Saturday evening, Ms Moore said her initial worry about whether she would be released quickly turned to "absolute fury" at her situation.
She was arrested on July 10th and charged with conspiracy to cause explosions along with three Irishmen. On Thursday the Crown Prosecution Service informed her solicitor by fax that it was dropping all charges.
"I'd like an apology at least. It wasn't just my life. My family's life has been destroyed, too," she said. "I was treated like a criminal over there. Once the PTA [Prevention of Terrorism Act] is mentioned, and your name after it, you're in big trouble. I lost everything. I've everything back now, but the life I had in London is completely lost. The amount of people it affected is unbelievable. They arrested 10 people.
"Being arrested was the hardest part. It was terrifying. I've always known an awful lot about what's happened to people through the years and I thought `Am I going to be tortured here? Am I going to be abused? How am I going to be treated? Will they slam the door and lock me up?' "
She said the case of Mr Danny McNamee, who was sentenced to 25 years in 1987 for conspiring to cause the Hyde Park bombing, "terrified" her. When asked if she feared she would end up in a similar situation to the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six, Ms Moore replied: "I think I did when I first met Gareth Peirce."
She said her solicitor, Ms Gareth Peirce, was "an amazing woman". "I really want to stress how fantastic she is. Mary Banotti and Peter Barry were great, too."
Ms Moore also thanked the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, the Irish community in London and the public here for their support. "I had a lot of support from Cork in particular, from a lot of Michael Collins fans. I'd almost say it was nice to be a part of that, but it wasn't, of course", she joked.
Asked how she thought Irish people living in the UK felt after her arrest she said: "Absolutely terrified".
"I knew some people who had friends staying with them and after what happened to me they thought, `Maybe I should ask them to leave'. It's shocking."
Ms Moore refused to comment on the prospects of the Irishmen arrested with her who were still facing terrorist charges.
"Their families are going through exactly what my family went through, so I'm not going to get into that."
She said it would be easier to get on with her life once media attention died down. "I'll probably relax for a while and then try to rebuild my career," she said.
Asked if she would ever return to Britain she said: "I'll never go back, not even for a shopping trip - never again".
Her mother, Mrs Cathy Moore, said she had been heartened by the support her daughter had had from people she had never met.
"If anything good has come from this it's that we've learned of people's goodness and generosity of spirit. That's the thing I will take out of this."
