Criminology in Ireland, the Rise of a Discipline

Against Hibernian Exceptionalism

“…This might appear as a rather banal and obvious point, but it has special salience in Irish criminology at this current juncture. As the nascent field of Irish criminology has begun to mushroom (for a comprehensive overview see Hamilton & Healy, 2016;Lynch et al, 2020) and there is growing interest in Irish penal history, it seems a timely and important moment to have a discussion about the problems of exceptionalism -and its attendant ideas of absences and inertia -along with the aspirations and potential for Irish criminological knowledge production it implies.…”

Crime, justice and criminology in the Republic of Ireland

“…The opening up of these positions in recent years marks an important milestone for a field whose graduates very often had to leave the island to pursue careers in criminology in various UK institutions (and indeed many still do). To a significant degree the increased number of faculty has been led by the high demand for the subject among students, with Lynch et al (2020) counting 54 honours degree programmes with a criminological component, and between 900 and 1000 students enrolling each year on these programmes. That said, large student numbers can also act as a pull on the time available for research and there remains a need to balance the needs of an ever increasing student population with opportunities for research (O’Donnell, 2020b).…”

“…Research tenders have also been issued by other, recently established, accountability or oversight bodies such as the Policing Authority and the Sentencing Guidelines Information Committee, joining more established funding streams from the Irish Research Council and European funding bodies. Such developments are likely to be welcomed by Irish criminologists, who, despite leanings towards social and critical theory, appear to share a consensus about the importance of criminology having a policy impact (Griffin, 2020; Lynch et al, 2020: 5; Rogan, 2020).…”

“…Despite the existence of this vibrant and engaged criminological community, Irish scholarship has not always featured strongly in international debates, the last of O’Donnell's indices. Lending weight to claims of a ‘theory’ as well as data ‘deficit’ in the Irish criminological landscape (Maruna, 2007: 981), a review of publications in this journal between 2004 and 2012 found that there were no contributions by Irish authors (Smith, 2013, cited in Lynch et al, 2020). While Ireland may not be unusual in this regard (a tally reveals that during the same period 11 EU countries had three or fewer articles), O’Donnell’s (2005a, 2005b) arguments continue to find a resonance in the relative paucity of work with a clear policy focus that is not jurisdiction specific.…”

“…Nearly two decades later, the Republic of Ireland plays host to a range of undergraduate and postgraduate criminology programmes, a state apparatus that actively engages with research, and a thriving criminological community. The aim of this article is to chart the ‘rise and rise’ (Lynch et al, 2020: 1) of Irish criminology since the publication of the last country survey in 2005 as well as the reform that has been visited upon many of its key criminal justice institutions. The central argument is that, while in this important sense criminology and criminal justice in Ireland has come closer to the international norm, Irish criminal justice retains a distinctively local flavour.…”