For the last two weeks there has been a large banner on the side of Liberty Hall. It simply read: “It was never your fault.”

The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre displayed the banner because we continue to operate at the highest level of alarm that rape myths and rape culture are thriving in Ireland. We want to do everything we can to show survivors that we stand with them.

We were motivated by national research we carried out last year that showed victim-blaming remains worryingly high, even if many people show greater awareness and understanding of sexual violence. This includes the mistaken belief that false rape accusations occur “a lot” (one in five people think this is the case), that sexual violence is made out to be a “big deal when it isn’t really” (one in 10 people believe this), or that they would be sceptical if a victim or survivors said they’d been drinking or under the influence of drugs (one in eight people).

While these headline figures already alarmed us, when we looked at the data in more detail, it revealed that young men are up to seven times more likely to hold these and other victim-blaming views than older men. I’m drawing attention to this research because we........

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