AS she reflects on 25 years as CEO of Women’s Aid ABCLN – which covers Antrim, Ballymena, Carrickfergus, Larne and Newtownabbey – Rosemary Magill’s thoughts often turn to Virginia Adamson.
Rosemary had been working at Holywell Hospital and was trained in general medicine and mental health nursing when she applied for a job at the new Women’s Aid centre in nearby Ballymena.
She started at the beginning of November 1998 with a small number of staff and a brand new refuge, which was, as she said ‘empty’, often sleeping in it herself to ward off burglaries.
However Rosemary soon learned that the refuge would not fill up until after Christmas – women stayed at home over the festive period for as long as possible, for the sake of their children.
But not Virginia Adamson. Rosemary got a call from the police on December 1, her daughter’s birthday, about a woman needing help.
“She was at the police station in a terrible state, covered in bite marks, wearing ‘his’ jumper and tracksuit bottoms as it was all she was able to grab.
“She said she wanted a smoke and a cup of tea and somewhere to be safe. So I got her sorted with some clean clothes, a nice Kickers jumper that had been donated.
“The next morning went home to give my daughter her birthday present and later in the day I went to do some training with the police and when I came back, Virginia had gone back to her mother’s, and said she thought she would be safe there.”
And the Kickers jumper had been left behind.
But she was not safe. On New Year’s Eve, returning from a party, Virginia was punched, kicked and stamped to death by her partner. Her ribs smashed, she drowned in her own blood on the kitchen floor, as it poured into her lungs.
“In Springfarm, because she had alcohol issues and was perhaps regarded as being from the wrong side of the tracks, some people thought ‘it was just Virginia’.” said Rosemary.
“Her self esteem was already destroyed and she and other people thought that she wasn’t even worth a good jumper, even after everything she had been through.” From then on, Rosemary said that Virginia’s death would not be in vain and that new refuge was eventually named after her so that her name would live on. She mattered. She would be remembered.
She wasn’t ‘just Virginia’.
As a testament to her care and attention to detail, Rosemary says she will always insist that anyone coming in to refuge is given a brand new packet of underwear.
“These women have already been through hell, I am not going to give them second hand knickers,” she said with a glint of defiance in her eye, from the landmark Cornerstone building in Antrim town.
Women’s Aid ABCLN, the newest group in a stable of eight across Northern Ireland, had previously occupied space about the old Pepper Pot cafe and then Anita’s Salon before they showed interest in 17 Fountain Street, inherited by the family of the late E.B Erskine in 1991 and formerly occupied Dalton & O’Shea’s dental surgery. Mr Erskine’s relatives put the building on the market in 2007.
Dentist chairs were still in every room and Rosemary found her office in the denture lab, where false teeth smiled at her from jars on a shelf.
As well as the internal refurbishment, outside, a huge barn had to be demolished and a jungle of a back garden had to be cleared.
Rosemary joked that she even begged the police for money to buy Semtex to blow the old shed up!
Funding eventually came from a variety of sources and the former owner of the building slashed the asking price to meet the bank’s offer, giving the vital group a permanent home, Grace House, like most of the group’s facilities, given a Biblical name.
In a poignant letter to the organisation, E.B Erskine’s granddaughter said that when she learned of Women’s Aid’s desire to buy the building, she considered it part of God’s plan.
“My grandfather was a kind hearted businessman and would have been delighted to see his family home used to help women in times of need.” she wrote.
“We were thrilled to see the excellent improvements and renovations. May God bless each person who works here and each person who passed through the doors,”
Further development came with the building of the Cornerhouse building where the barn once stood, and a tranquil garden. Then began another quest for funding.
Former PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton was said to be so moved by a chat with one of the groups meeting in Grace House, that he vowed to help secure the last piece of funding to ensure that the Cornerstone was completed – and that, he did.
The complex is now known as ‘Grace House & The Cornerstone Centre and Safe Haven Garden in Antrim and main funders including Ulster Garden Villages, Enkalon Foundation, Northern Trust and the PSNI for The Cornerstone Centre and National Lottery People’s Millions for the Safe Haven Garden.
Rosemary is shy of mentioning her achievements – the setting up of many initiatives, championing the White Ribbon campaign, now a standalone entity, the ONUS training social enterprise, which funnels money earned back into directly helping women and informing legislation aimed at protecting women and children.
The latest piece of legislation was enshrined in recent weeks, concerning non-fatal strangulation.
There are many new dangers to women that were not around in the mid 1990s, like the malign influence of ‘influencers’ on impressionable boys, but Rosemary said that the spectre of violence has always been present.
“People say that it has never been so dangerous for women and that there are more women being killed and injured than ever, but to be honest we are just hearing about it more and it is coming to court and is in the media more often,” she said.
“And we need to remember that violence against women is not always between partners, it can be children against parents and grandparents and grandchildren and vice versa – things that very few people want to come forward and speak out about.
“If you were being abused by your partner, witnessed by your children, and your partner used that to frighten you into not saying anything, because the children would be taken away by social services, what would you do? Because that is happening.”
“There are also cases where sons are committing sexual violence against their mothers and grandmothers – that is a very hard thing to come out and admit to the authorities for fear of being judged.
“People think that domestic and sexual violence towards older people does not happen, but it does and that is what our Older But No Safer campaign aimed to demonstrate.
“There is still a wall of silence around domestic and sexual abuse and it needs to be broken down.
“I am proud of what has been achieved over 25 years but so much more needs to be done and there has been much opposition to our work over the years.”
Rosemary said that there are still extremely lenient sentencing guidelines for certain crimes, recalling an incident where a man held a boiling kettle over his wife’s head and threatened to scald her, but walked away with just probation.
Cuts to funding mean that Rosemary and Communication and Engagement Manager Arlene Creighton have had to think outside the box in terms of securing support.
There have been huge awareness campaigns, the social enterprise, working alongside local businesses to maintain the garden at The Cornerstone – which was a huge asset during the covid crisis as a safe place for women whilst also maintaining social distancing guidelines – and the exploration of corporate funding and sponsorship where Government support falls short.
Rosemary admits that keeping the organisation going through the pandemic was no mean feat, with many women feeling trapped with abusive partners and the refuge often struggling to take the full complement of people whilst adhering to the rules at the time.
But they did it, and have come out stronger by building a resilient and future-proofed organisation.
Last year Women’s Aid ABCLN worked with 1,468 women and 580 children across Antrim, Ballymena, Carrickfergus, Larne and Newtownabbey including 96 women and 54 children in refuge.
There have also been link-ups with the creative sector, where Women’s Aid ABCLN has worked with the Ulster Orchestra, NI Opera and a series of artists to help women express themselves and promote the message of the organisation through music and arts – which is especially important for women who do not have English as a first language.
Indeed, there is an ever increasing number of women seeking help who have either been trafficked or are in Northern Ireland with no access or entitlement to any funding or support from statutory agencies.
Rosemary is being succeeded by Gillian Creevy, who was present for our interview last week, and knows she has big shoes to fill, but is confident about making those much-needed improvements in the years ahead.