A woman has opened up about the homophobic and racist abuse she has experienced from teenagers since relocating to Ireland earlier this year. Speaking to RTÉ using the alias Jennifer, she shared how she and her partner have been repeatedly targeted at their home, saying, “It’s been relentless pretty much since I moved in”. 

The pair, who have been together for six years, live in a town in Leinster where a gang of boys have reportedly been tormenting them.

“It started with bangs on the windows, and then it went to us getting eggs thrown at the front and at the back of the house,” Jennifer explained. “That would be multiple times a week. And then the racism and the homophobia started.”

She said the “most serious and scary incident” happened just a few weeks ago when her partner was coming home from work.

“(The teenagers) were calling her a lot of homophobic slurs. And then it escalated to the point where the comments were really quite aggressive and violent. And it’s one thing to have eggs thrown at your house, and it’s another to be actually threatened…

“They said to my partner that if she was in Russia, she would be shot and then they shouted that ‘all lesbians should die’.”

Jennifer added, “It’s not that we’ve never experienced homophobia before. We get called names a lot of the time, but it was different. It felt different in that it was violent and there was so much anger in his voice as well.”

As a result of the repeated harassment, she said she is “constantly on edge”. 

“There’s no escape. There’s nowhere that I feel safe anymore,” she expressed.

While Jennifer has reported every incident to the Gardaí, she feels the response has been ineffective: “Nothing has been done. They would come out to the call, but it would be several hours after the fact. So, by that point, the people that had done it were obviously long gone.”

Outside of these incidents, Jennifer’s experience of living in Leinster so far has been largely positive. She shared that the adults she has met have been “lovely”, including her neighbours and work colleagues. However, the anti-social behaviour by teenagers is an unfortunate trend emerging throughout Ireland.

“Your home is supposed to be where you feel safe. I just want to live in peace,” she concluded.

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