Gardaí probe naked images taken at GAA players’ party
A GARDA investigation is under way after X-rated photos and videos of GAA players posing with naked women appeared online this week.
A series of sleazy images taken at a private party to celebrate St Patrick’s Ballyragget’s Intermediate Hurling Championship victory in Kilkenny went viral online on Wednesday.
The pictures show two women stripping in front of large numbers of cheering men, while a small number of men also stripped and posed with the women while holding the championship trophy. One particularly shocking image shows one of the women performing a sex act on a man while several other men are seen laughing.
Another video lasting more than a minute shows two women stripping in front of a man in his boxer shorts while other men stand around laughing and filming on their smartphones. Gardaí have now confirmed they are carrying out an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the publication of the photos.
In a statement, gardaí said: ‘No complaint has been received to date. However, the matter is currently under investigation.’
The Kilkenny GAA County Board is also investigating the incident and has met officials from St Patrick’s, who have stressed that the party was a private event. The chairman of the club has said it will ‘co-operate fully with any investigation’.
One of the women in the images told the Irish Daily Mirror that she and her colleague were paid €400 in total to attend the party. She said she slept with one of the men at the party that night, and slept with two others the following night.
The Irish Daily Mail yesterday revealed how, as the pictures began to circulate to the wider public, members of a WhatsApp group who were at the celebration warned one another to remove any images of the event they’d posted online.
A leading organisation that works with women affected by prostitution said the images ‘hardly represent the GAA as a safe place for any woman or girl’.
A Ruhama spokeswoman said what happened ‘reveals the depressing reality of sportsmen who believe the best way to celebrate a win is through the sexual objectification and use of women’s bodies’.