My aunt was murdered by her husband… so when I found myself in a violent relationship I KNEW I had to leave – and help others in the same situation: Former beauty queen Monica Walsh on giving women the strength to escape abuse

Behind the glamour of pageants and photographs was a childhood memory Monica Walsh could never forget – a bruise hidden behind sunglasses, and the aunt whose death inspired her fight to protect abuse survivors.

Monica has never forgotten the sunglasses. She was a teenager when she first noticed her aunt wearing them indoors – at family gatherings, even when there was no sun. Something about it unsettled her. Then, one day, she caught a glimpse of what they were hiding – a dark bruise, unmistakable, before it was quickly covered again.

When she asked what had happened, nobody answered.

Three decades later, Monica still remembers that moment. It stayed with her because everyone seemed to notice yet nobody spoke about it. Much of her adult life has been spent trying to break that pattern – a difficult journey for someone whose public image was so different.

To many, she was the model, beauty competition winner and confident figure photographed in gowns and smiling for the cameras. Few would have guessed that she would one day become one of Ireland’s most outspoken voices on domestic abuse.

Her story begins with her aunt, and with what Monica would later experience herself.

Her aunt was also her godmother – the woman who, in the close-knit communities of small Polish towns, was like a second mother.

She was murdered by her husband in an unprovoked attack, beaten against a radiator and left to die. She was 36.

Her youngest child, just five years old, was in the house when police arrived.

‘Nobody sat me down and told me,’ Monica says. ‘It was only as an adult that I finally uncovered the truth. Domestic violence was treated as a taboo, a topic too uncomfortable to speak aloud.’

She remembers the questions that went unanswered at the funeral, and the feeling that an entire family had chosen not to confront what had happened.

‘It sparked a deep frustration in me, but also a sense of duty,’ she says. ‘Keeping quiet only protects the cycle of abuse.’

For years, Monica carried that experience quietly while building a life that looked very different from those early memories. She became a familiar face in Irish modelling and beauty circles – photographed in gowns, appearing at events and representing Ireland internationally. It was a world built around confidence and presentation.

But away from the cameras, she was still carrying a story she had not yet shared. What very few people knew was that Monica would eventually find herself living with a version of that same silence.

In her early 20s, a boyfriend shoved her hard enough to injure her head and arm. When people asked what had happened, she was too embarrassed to tell anybody what really happened. Instead, she told her employer she had fallen down the stairs.

It was the exact same fear and shame that had once kept her aunt’s bruises hidden behind those sunglasses years before.

‘I understand why women hide it,’ she says now. ‘I’ve done it myself.’

She believes that honesty is why so many survivors reach out to her. They know she is not speaking as an outsider, but as someone who understands the fear and shame that can keep women silent because she has experienced it herself.

Monica grew up in Poland, in the Silesia region, in a small town far removed from the life she would later build in Ireland. She studied at the Silesian University of Pedagogy and qualified as a teacher before leaving for Ireland – a new country, a new language and a completely different life.

She later gained a Cambridge ESOL qualification and began working with young children in montessori classrooms, a career she has held for almost two decades.

It was in Ireland that another, unexpected chapter began. Through Andrea Roche’s modelling agency, Monica entered a world of castings, photo shoots and public appearances, balancing it alongside her work in the classroom and raising her son. Modelling led to beauty competitions, and she went on to win Mrs Ireland Universe and Mrs Ireland World before representing Ireland at Mrs World.

It was, unexpectedly, that same stage that gave Monica the platform to finally speak. At the Mrs World finals, surrounded by women using their public profiles to highlight causes close to them, she began thinking differently.

‘I began reflecting deeply on my own purpose,’ she recalls.

Standing among women who were using their platforms to champion causes close to their hearts, Monica found herself returning to her aunt’s story. This time, she decided not to keep it private. The crown gave her a platform – and she used it to shine a light on domestic abuse rather than the world of beauty she had come from.

The messages began soon afterwards and have never really stopped. Survivors started contacting her for help and that journey eventually led to her book, Take Me Out Of This Hell!

Monica says it began almost by accident, while she was preparing a speech about domestic violence in Ireland.

‘As I researched, the scope of what I was looking at suddenly expanded,’ she says. ‘This isn’t just an Irish issue – it’s a massive, global crisis, wrapped in the same suffocating silence.’

That was the moment, she says, when she told herself, enough is enough.

Writing the book meant revisiting her aunt’s death in detail for the first time, confronting her own abusive relationship and reconnecting with women who had shared their experiences with her over the years.

Some she met quietly in cars, giving them a private space to tell their stories without fear of anyone finding out they had spoken.

The process was interrupted in 2017 by the death of her mother, a loss that made the work even more difficult but also more important. The finished book brings together her aunt’s murder, her own experience of abuse and the stories of other survivors, alongside advice on recognising the warning signs of abusive relationships.

By day, Monica remains a montessori teacher. Outside those hours, her phone is filled with messages from women who feel they have nowhere else to turn.

‘Some of the hardest stories are from women who wavered, who went back to their abuser more than once before finally realising things weren’t going to change,’ she says.

She is not a trained counsellor and does not claim to be one, but where she can, she tries to help. She has taken a woman into her own home on Christmas Eve after a refuge was unable to take her in. She has knocked on a neighbour’s door in Belfast after hearing screams through the wall and stayed until police arrived.

‘Sometimes they don’t need a solution right away,’ she says. ‘They just need someone to talk it through with. I’m honoured to be that person.’

The need for that work remains enormous. Garda figures for the first four months of 2026 show more than 17,900 domestic abuse incidents reported nationally, up 10 per cent on the same period last year – more than 1,000 a week. Safe Ireland’s One Day Census found 850 adults and 324 children seeking support from specialist services on a single day in January, with many unable to access help because there simply was not enough space.

For Monica, those figures represent real people – women living carefully, managing what happens behind closed doors and hoping someone will eventually ask the right question.

It is why she has found herself thinking about the killing of Jamey Carney in Co Kerry in early July, after she was beaten and suffocated in her own home just days after she and her partner had posted smiling photographs online. Monica is careful not to comment beyond what is already known about the case, but she says the pattern is familiar.

‘This is a classic and terrifying pattern,’ she says. ‘Perpetrators often present a loving, attentive public persona. That mask of normalcy makes it incredibly difficult for friends, family or even the victim herself to recognise the danger until it’s too late.’

She is particularly focused on the early stages of relationships, when she believes there is still an opportunity to see warning signs.

‘Early on, a partner might shower you with attention, quick declarations of love, promises of a future together – love bombing,’ she says.

‘It can feel wonderful, especially if you’ve been lonely. But real intimacy is built slowly, over months and years.

‘If he’s rushing you to commit, slow down.’

She pays attention, too, to how a man speaks about the women in his life, including his mother and sisters, and how he responds when someone sets a boundary.

‘If setting a boundary or having an independent opinion is met with anger, coldness or punishment, that is a major warning sign,’ she says.

There is one question she has little patience for: why doesn’t she just leave?

‘It’s the most frequent, and dangerous, question people ask,’ she says. ‘It assumes leaving is simple, when actually it’s the most perilous moment in a victim’s life. Abusers are master manipulators who convince their victims they can’t survive alone, that no one will believe them, that their children will be taken away.’

Her response is always the same – ‘Shift the question from, why doesn’t she leave? to why does he abuse?’ she says.

On Jennie’s Law, named for Jennifer Poole, which allows people to find out if a new partner has a history of violent or coercive behaviour, Monica is clear about where she stands.

‘I’ve supported it whole-heartedly from the start,’ she says. ‘If someone has a history of destroying lives, a new partner has a right to know before they get trapped.’

But she does not believe any single piece of legislation can solve the wider problem.

‘It’s a beautiful tribute to Jennifer Poole but it’s a foundation, not the finish line,’ she says.

Monica also believes teachers have a crucial role in recognising abuse at an early stage.

‘You’re often the first people to notice when a child’s home life is falling apart – a bubbly child suddenly shutting down, a quiet child becoming hyperactive, or physical signs like bruises,’ she says. ‘For a child living in fear, your classroom is often their only safe haven.’

She would like to see healthy relationships and consent education given a much stronger place in Irish schools, so children learn to recognise unhealthy behaviour before they find themselves in harmful situations.

But she says responsibility cannot rest with teachers, campaigners or any one organisation alone.

‘It’s too easy to walk around with our heads in our phones,’ she says. ‘I once intervened in a couple’s fight in a car park just to ask if everything was okay, and that small interruption gave a trapped woman the chance to escape. Look up. Don’t be afraid to step in.’

To anyone still living in an abusive relationship, Monica’s message is simple and direct.

‘You are not alone, and this is absolutely not your fault,’ she insists. ‘You deserve to be loved and respected.

‘Our home should be a sanctuary. You cannot fix, change, or love an abuser into treating you better. Trust your instincts.’

To those watching from the outside, unsure whether to say something, she asks them not to disappear.

‘Keep reaching out, keep sending low-pressure messages and let them know our door will remain open no matter what,’ she says.

When asked what has meant the most to her since the book was published, she does not hesitate.

‘Knowing that a shared story gave someone the courage to keep going or to seek help is the ultimate reward for putting such vulnerable work out into the world,’ she says.

‘If it gives just one person the strength to escape abuse and start over, then my job is done.

‘I still think about those sunglasses,’ she says. ‘I think about how many people saw something and looked away.’

TAKE Me Out Of This Hell! by Monica Walsh is out now. For help or support, visit womensaid.ie or call 1800 341 900