Vigil for 78 women and 10 children murdered by partners
A vigil will take place outside the Dáil today to remember 78 women murdered by their partners since 1996.
Women's Aid are organising the minute's silence to highlight the contrast between domestic abuse and intimate partner homicide.
Ten children murdered alongside their mothers will also be remembered.
The charity will lay 78 pairs of women's shoes and 10 pairs of children's shoes outside Leinster House to highlight their plight.
One in every two women murdered in the last 18 years was killed by a current or former boyfriend, partner or husband.
Director of Women's Aid Margaret Martin said the risk factors of domestic violence could vary.
"It may have been the violence started early on (but) for one in four women who are physically assaulted, it begins when they're pregnant so when they are in the relationship for a while.
"It can very often be a pattern that can be quite hard to see until you look back (and then see it)…(For example) controlling behaviour can have seemed at the time like someone was just very interested in what you were doing."
