‘Childhood sexual abuse is too much of a burden for one person to carry for their whole lives. Speaking out has freed us’

Sisters Hannah Saunders and Caroline Saunders Tyrrell were sexually abused as children, and keeping this secret cast a suffocating shadow over their lives. Revealing the truth, first to each other, then to their partners and beloved family, was the first step towards healing

Sisters Caroline Saunders Tyrrell and Hannah Saunders pictured at Airfield Estate, Dundrum, Co Dublin. Photo: Gerry Mooney

Liadán Hynes

Ten years ago, when both sisters were living in London, Caroline Saunders Tyrrell phoned her younger sister Hannah Saunders one evening and asked her to come over. “I panic called her and said ‘I need to talk to you’,” Caroline recalls now.

She is sitting beside her sister Hannah on a couch in the latter’s Dublin home. Caroline has flown over from London, where she lives with her husband and three daughters, for the day, so that she and her sister can tell their story together. For Caroline, it is the first time she has spoken publicly about being a childhood sexual abuse survivor.