Mar 062012

Michael Duffy was a decent man who helped his intellectually-disabled son, Francis, to buy a house so he could have some independence.  Michael paid the electricity and gas bills while Francis got on with his life according to his abilities.

One night, when his neighbours were having a party, Francis sat into a car that belonged to Claire Nolan.  That was his way.  Everyone knew it.

Enraged, Claire Nolan, a woman with 15 previous convictions for possession of cocaine, public order and road traffic offences,  ran out of the party and attacked Francis with a baseball bat.  According to Nolan, she went “mental” due to being full of coke, drink and “zimmos”.  Francis called his father, Michael, who arrived to protect his son.  Claire Nolan jumped into her car and crushed Michael Duffy to death.   Claire Nolan told the court that what had happened was an accident, caused by being spaced on liquor, coke and Zimovane, although her confusion didn’t prevent her driving the car 500 metres from the crime scene and setting fire to it.

One of the first things that struck me when reading this story was this: what if a man had done such a thing?

How would this read if rewritten with the genders reversed?

Let’s start again with false names.

Miriam Duffy was a decent woman who helped her intellectually-disabled daughter, Frances, to buy a house so she could have some independence.  Miriam paid the electricity and gas bills while Frances got on with her life according to her abilities.

One night, when her neighbours were having a party, Frances sat into a car that belonged to Charlie Nolan.  That was her way.  Everyone knew it.

Enraged, Charlie Nolan, a man with 15 previous convictions for possession of cocaine, public order and road traffic offences,  ran out of the party and attacked Frances with a baseball bat.  According to Nolan, he went “mental” due to being full of coke, drink and “zimmos”.  Frances called her mother, Miriam, who arrived to protect her daughter.  Charlie Nolan jumped into his car and crushed Miriam  Duffy to death.   Charlie Nolan told the court that what had happened was an accident, caused by being spaced on liquor, coke and Zimovane, although his confusion didn’t prevent him driving the car 500 metres from the crime scene and setting fire to it.

In a world where men are routinely depicted as violent brutes,  where domestic violence against male partners is hidden and where all men are asked to feel shame for the actions of the few, I think this news story deserves pondering.

What do you think?

  16 Responses to “Male and Female Violence. Claire Nolan Convicted of Crushing Man to Death With Car”

Comments (16)

    To me, there’s no gender difference in terms of how much violence a person is capable of. When tanked up with drugs, some people (both male and female) go berserk.
    I think she should be convicted of murder.


    I agree. It’s hard to know how she escaped a murder conviction.


    RTÉ images of Claire Nolan leaving the courtroom showed a well-dressed woman who wouldn’t look out of place in an office environment or shopping in Brown Thomas.

    Now, this particular lady’s convictions extended beyond simple possession of cocaine, she was also convicted for sale and supply of the same drug the day prior to this killing. Her public order convictions also included assault on two Gardaí. My understanding is that this lady never spent one day behind bars.

    She was handed down a three-year suspended sentence for the sale & supply offense.

    Bizarrely, two previous trials failed to reach a verdict where the charge preferred by the DPP was murder. Last December the DPP (coincidently, herself a woman) preferred a manslaughter charge.

    Two observations here.

    Firstly, where the DPP made two separate attempts to prosecute a murder charge, why did two different juries refuse to convict even though the facts were already well known?

    Secondly, why is it that women generally receive lesser charges or sentences than men where the offense is equally grevious?

    There is a long history here of women receiving lesser sentences for killing. In 2003 alone, four women were prosecuted for murder, all but one walked free (even though they were convicted of manslaughter). The sole woman who received a life sentence was a Welsh woman who stabbed a man 13 times (including in the eye and in the groin), boiled a full kettle and poured boiling water over him as he bleed to death.


    The only difference I see is that our media would have played up the fact that the murdered person was a mum; aw, boo-hoo. As if a man’s life is worth less – or any person with no kids is worth less. I am tired of hearing any corpse described first as a ‘father of two’ as if that means we should feel more sorry for them being shotgunned to death over stealing a pensioner’s heating oil.


    The justice system in Ireland is notoriously lenient on all convicts, including men.

    I don’t agree with this at all –
    “In a world where men are routinely depicted as violent brutes”
    The only men that’d be depicted as violent brutes are violent brutes.

    I can think of a few men I’ve come in contact with that aren’t violent brutes. Brutes maybe, but not violent anyways.


    It’s a woman’s world in the courts. Due to thousands of years of gender conditioning, including the evolution of cultural concepts such as ‘the fair sex’ or ‘the tender emotions of the eternal female’ or ‘male chivalry towards damsels in distress’ the instinctive sympathies of judges weigh towards women who appear in man-versus-woman cases. Was all this cultural evolution a mistake? I don’t think so. Women biologically have to carry babies to term. They have to wean and nurture. They have to ensure basic safety and cleanliness for babies, as their hunter-gatherer men go out into the jungles and do what men have to do to put fruit and meat on the dinner table. Biologically women tend to be weaker than men. So the logical, compassionate thing has been for cultures to agree that women need special protection and respect. Just one fault in all this gender deference though: women are morally not different from men. They can be just as beastly as men when it comes to assault, murder, cruelty, sexual depravity, gluttony, avarice and all the rest of it. Which means that judges need to bear in mind that time-honed principal of Equality before the Law.

    Yep. That can be the male slogan from now on. Equality before the Law for everyone. And that includes Fathers’ Rights in civil access cases.


    Question: Is it possible that the women’s movement of the 60’s inadvertently spawned this type of individual?

    Two most likely answers to my question are as follows

    1 Typical man, Even to dare think that this type of activity could in any way shape or form be blamed on the women’s movement. Fuck off back to the cave you wanker.

    2. It is possible that during the struggle for equal rights for women that some misguided individuals thought that equal rights meant that taking on men’s behavioural patterns would somehow make women appear more equal. And this has resulted in today’s chav culture

    Both answers have one common denominator. Its never the women’s fault.

    My personal opinion. The law is an ass when it comes to violent crime perpetrated by the female of the species. I personally know two men who have suffered severe domestic violence at the hands of their female partners. But its been kept very, very quite. There is a lot of this going on, but kept well hidden.


    Don’t you know the 11th commandment of the courts: It cannot be the woman’s fault. Only a week or two ago, the supreme court ruled that only males can be guilty of statutory rape where underage sex takes place, because the woman bears the risk of pregnancy. Not an unreasonable argument in itself, but when you consider the substantial upside of pregnancy – it is almost impossible to be sent to jail if you are a mum – well it seems the ladies have it both ways.


    I see exactly what your point is, Bock, and it’s a very valid one too. It’s yet another case of legal double standards. Women are just as capable of violent crime than men.

    Yep, in Ireland women are the fairer sex and they can do no wrong whatsoever. This woman in particular is a nasty piece of shit who should’ve had the book thrown at her.


    there hasn’t been gender equality in the world ever. you just got to get on with it and not allow yourself be the victim of it.


    Them zimmos are killers, no doubt.


    I wonder who will now help Francis Duffy with any day-to-day assistance he may require.
    I wonder will this be considered during Nolan’s sentencing.
    I wonder what restitution, (if there could possibly be any), Nolan will be required to make.
    I wonder if the Duffy family will receive any meaningful justice for the tragedy wrought on them, by this complete and utter waste-of-space Nolan.


    I sympathise with The Gardai, coming from a Garda family.They work their backsides off to get people off the streets, and The Courts/DPP, just give them a rap on the knuckles, whereas, if you import Garlic from China, you get 6 years.Something Stinks, and its not the garlic.


    15 previous convictions and she gets 8 years, with 2 knocked off for pleading guilty. Wonder what would have happened if she was convicted of garlic smuggling?


    Somebody shoulda told Padraig Nally she was pokin’ ’round his back garden. Paddy would take care of business alright.


    its just not equal accross the board, the garlic guy 6 years, mick wallace a trip to Poland, same crime different facts, if anything Wallaces crime was worse as he paid no Vat while your man paid some and just swapped apples for garlic

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