'I have to speak for her': Jasmine McMonagle sister calls for action on femicide

A sister of murdered Donegal woman Jasmine McMonagle says more has to be done to tackle femicide in Ireland.

Jenna McMonagle was speaking in the wake of a murder of a mother-of-two, Paula Canty, in Cork.

Ms McMonagle’s sister, 28-year-old Jasmine, also the mother to two young children, was killed in her Killygordon on January 4, 2019.

"I think if people aren’t talking about it then nothing will change. People need to know what’s the reality of this," she told Katie Hannon on Upfront: The Podcast.

"There’s so many angles that people need to come at this from. A lot needs to be done for things to change. This is happening on a regular basis.

"I know if it was the other way around – if it was me and it was Jasmine that was here – she would be out there talking for me. So, I have to speak for her.”

She has called an improvement on involving young men in conversations around gender-based violence.

Since 1996, 271 women have been killed in Ireland, Women’s Aid Femicide Watch have said, while a government report showed that 71% of the women killed between 2014 and 2019 were killed by their current or former male partner or husband.

Ms McMonagle said: "Who are the people who are really going to be able to speak to teenage boys?

"It’s going to be other men to be able to get into the mindset of these young people and maybe help them express their feelings," Jenna added.

"Teenagers need to be spoken to from a certain age, boys and girls. Get girls to look out for the red flags [with] boys being spoken to by other men, telling them what’s right, what’s not right and how to control their emotions.”

In 2023, Richard Burke, Jasmine McMonagle’s on-and-off partner, was jailed for 14 years for her killing. A jury at the Central Criminal Courts returned a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by reason of diminished responsibility.

The body of the hairdresser and model was found in a pool of blood in the kitchen of her home following a three-hour standoff between Burke and gardaí.

Mr Justice Paul Burns noted the level of violence used against a defenceless woman that included the use of weapons. He also took into account that the victim was at home with her two children at the time.

The court heard that Burke threatened to kill McMonagle before strangling her to death during a psychotic episode after taking unprescribed drugs.

Jenna McMonagle, who is now the guardian of one of Jasmine’s children, spoke about the impact of a lengthy trial on the family.

She said: "When the trial comes along, and then you have to sit and listen to things in graphic detail that you’ve never heard before, it’s so traumatic.

"In the trial I just remember I thought, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to be able to move past this’. But then you just start to carry on again - and you do carry on with your life but you’re never going to be the same.

"It impacts your sleep, impacts your memory – there’s so many parts of your life that it can really, really damage.”

She says bereaved families need more in the way of support during such experiences.

Jenna, who praised the help she received from the Donegal Women’s Centre, added: "Whenever something like this happens you get an overwhelming amount of people coming, offering this and that, at the start. You’ll have doctors coming to you, you’ll have people offering some free therapy sessions for a certain amount of time, different things.

Read next: Killea man Gary Crossan hands renal unit over €5,000 in memory of Gerry Lennon

"But when the dust settles there’s not a lot there and you kind of have to go looking for things yourself. I was on a waiting list for some counselling myself and in the end, I never heard back.”