“SCARED is what you’re feeling. Brave is what you’re doing.”
This quote from Emma Donoghue’s best-selling novel Room captures the essence of RTÉ documentary Natasha, the revealing story of one Limerick woman’s fight for justice after being the victim of a horrific violent attack in the city three years ago.
Natasha O’Brien was thrust into the spotlight in 2022 after she was beaten unconscious by Cathal Crotty, a member of the defence forces at the time of the random assault.
The Limerick woman was punched several times by the soldier after she told him to stop shouting homophobic slurs at another person. Crotty fled the scene and later boasted about the attack to friends on social media.
Natasha, a candid and affecting documentary shows the aftermath of this violent attack and how the pressure of a broken justice system affected every aspect of the young bar worker’s life as she pushed through her trauma into activism.
No punches are spared and Natasha’s vulnerability, and unyielding world view, are captured on film, warts and all, as we see this unstoppable force of nature at her lowest and most deeply personal moments.
She struggles with the vile backlash on social media. Then in another scene, a despondent Natasha explains how she phoned Victim Support for advice on what to wear to Crotty’s sentencing hearing, in which he received a three-year suspended sentence.
“I was afraid that if I looked like a happy, healthy person I wouldn’t be taken seriously as a victim,” she confesses.
When Crotty finally paid for his crime in January this year, with his suspended sentence overturned, Natasha is overwhelmed by guilt that her attacker, also a young person with their life in front of them, is jailed for two years. She feels things greatly, which clearly took its toll on her throughout this tumultuous episode.
Natasha O’Brien is an empath, she wears her heart on her sleeve, and you sense that as she grows into her advocacy role, and matures as a person, she will be an even greater force to be reckoned with. Nonetheless, she is still a hugely inspirational woman, a shining light to victims everywhere.
Natasha is now available to view on the RTÉ Player.
