When "Mary" (37) read at the weekend of the imminent release of Derry O'Rourke, she "nearly passed out".
"I knew the day would come and I knew it was coming, but I couldn't believe it was happening. I cried all day yesterday when I read it in the Sunday Tribune. It all came back."
Speaking to The Irish Timesby phone yesterday, "Mary" - using a pseudonym to protect her identity - said she was abused by O'Rourke from the age of 10 until she was 17. Swimming was her life, and to be one of O'Rourke's students was to be on the best team. "It was an honour and you'd hang on his every word."
She trained every morning from 6am before school. "And I was back in the pool at half four. My dream was to one day swim for Ireland." The sexual abuse "was just there", though none of the other victims ever spoke to her, nor did she to anyone else about what was happening to her.
Only now, as an adult in the context of counselling, has she been able to ask herself why she went back each day.
"He destroyed my life, destroyed my family. My mother took her own life because of what he did. On the Thursday before she died she told me she loved me and she was sorry she ruined my life, sorry she wasn't there to look after me. I told her it wasn't her fault because I'd never told her."
She said she had a nervous breakdown after O'Rourke was sentenced in 1998, had attempted suicide and was hospitalised.
Despite a lot of counselling, it is impossible, she says, to put the abuse behind her. "It's there all the time. There are constant memories. It's part of who I am."
Asked if she hoped O'Rourke might have some remorse, she said: "He doesn't care about what he did to us. It is unbelievable that he is going to get out and get on with his life and we are here, still devastated."
