The terrifying true story of a 16-year-old girl sold into marriage by her father: this took place in 1973 in Ireland.
Category: Biography/Memoir, True Crime
In 1973 a sixteen-year-old Irish schoolgirl was sold into marriage by her father. Her groom was a farmer almost four times her age. Despite a pre-nuptial agreement guaranteeing that there would be no sex, her husband raped her repeatedly. He also beat her.
Although she made desperate pleas for help, the legal system, the police and the clergy failed to come to her aid. Sold into Marriage is the story of that girl's loveless marriage, as told to journalist Sean Boyne, her rape, subsequent pregnancy and suicide attempt and her eventual escape to London and freedom.
Sean Boyne is a journalist and author. He retired in 2009 as Political Correspondent of the Sunday World, one of Ireland’s major newspapers.
'A disturbing and well-written account of savage cruelty'
'A chilling account of cruelty, abuse and domination. Nuala comes across as an exceptional person, who despite her horrific ordeal, never lost her sense of self'
'A sad reminder of the closed society which we tolerated until very recently'
'an incredible and disturbing story'
'Nuala's tale is an emotional one that makes for compulsive reading'
'... will strike a chord with any woman who has been trapped into a bad relationship, but I guarantee you none of you will ever have equalled the likes of the horrors perpretrated on this poor girl before she finally broke out of her cage.'
