A Galway man who raped his younger sister about 40 years ago and told her their mother would die if she told anyone, has been jailed.
The now 59 year old man stood trial in the Central Criminal Court on a range of charges for the abuse, when she was a child and he was in his late teens.
The woman, now in her late 40s, told her brother in her victim impact statement that he was "a devil, a monster, a wolf in sheep's clothing."
She recalled how he repeatedly told her throughout her childhood that their mother would die if she ever told anyone about the abuse.
She said she was so ashamed as a member of the Travelling community, adding that she feared she would ruin their family name.
Her brother was found guilty by a jury of two counts - one of rape and one of indecently assaulting the girl by anally raping her in their family home on dates between 1985 and 1986.
The court heard the man was in charge of the family at the time of the first offence, when he was seventeen and the victim was around eight or nine years old.
He sent the other children away before raping her in a box room and telling her that their mother would die if she told anyone.
The indecent assault occurred in a bathroom of the same home.
Sentencing the man, Ms Justice Eileen Creedon noted the DPP had placed the offending in the more serious category of a 10 to 15 year headline sentence, but also that she must treat the man as if he were a child at the time of the offending.
She noted there was little in mitigation, given the absence of guilty pleas, acknowledgement of wrong-doing or remorse.
She sentenced the man to seven years in prison for the rape and five years for the indecent assault, to be served concurrently, and suspended the final year of the sentence on a number of conditions.
The court previously heard the man has 24 previous convictions, including public order and road traffic offences, assault, burglary and possession of drugs.
