Holly Cairns left ‘terrified’ after online stalker showed up at her home

Social Democrats TD Holly Cairns has said she was left “absolutely terrified” when a persistent online stalker began to show up at her home.

She also said she might never have run for election had she known the level of abuse she would face in the course of her job.

“If I knew what I was getting myself into, no, I would not have done it,” she said. “[Am I] glad I didn’t know? One hundred per cent. Because I don’t regret it. But honestly, had I known... probably, no, I wouldn’t have done it.”

The TD for Cork South West was speaking on The Group Chat podcast from Virgin Media News. The programme came in the wake of Irish Times reporting last week which revealed the scale of abuse faced by women in politics, with five representatives describing the threats and fear they lived through.

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She told the podcast about the sexual nature of abusive comments sent to her online and by post – including being sent clippings from pornography featuring other women named Holly.

In the interview, broadcast on Wednesday night on Virgin Media Two, the 33-year-old revealed that a persistent online stalker began to show up at her home – including at times when she was in Dublin for work – leaving her “absolutely terrified”.

“It changed for me,” she said. “I felt then like every message I got was somebody who could potentially turn up to my house, and then it really changed how I behaved in every single thing I did then.”

Ms Cairns said she has been forced to get CCTV for her home and a domestic security system: “It did get worse and worse and worse over time,” she said.

She also said she has been advised by gardaí not to run a constituency clinic, because it would involve advertising where she would be at specific times, probably alone.

“It interferes with your job to the extent that you can’t do the same things as your constituency colleagues,” she said. “It impacts you every step of the way, and then you also can’t really say why it is that you can’t do constituency clinics.”