This book examines the forms and practices of Irish confinement from the 19th century to present-day to explore the social and political failings of 20th and 21st century postcolonial Ireland. Building on an interdisciplinary conference held in the Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast, the methodological approaches adopted across this book range from the historical and archival to the sociological, political, and literary. This edited collection touches on topics such as industrial schools, Magdalen laundries, struggles and resistance in prisons both North and South, Direct Provision, and the ways in which prison experiences have been represented in literature, cinema, and the arts. It sketches out an uncomfortable picture of the techniques for policing bodies deployed in Ireland for over a century. This innovative study seeks to establish a link between Ireland’s inhumane treatment of women and children, of prisoners, and of asylum seekers today, and to expose and pinpoint modes of resistance to these situations.

This volume contains an Open Access Chapter Leading scholars on Irish penal history and theory explore trends and debates that have surrounded patterns of punishment in Ireland since the formation of the State and foreground often absent perspectives in criminology and punishment.

In this contribution to the history and sociology of punishment, Carroll-Burke (sociology, U. of California, Davis) provides the first major study of the sociopolitical forces that shaped the Irish Convict System (ICS) in the mid-19th century. The author analyzes the structural design, record-keeping technologies, and forms of disciplinary pedagogy of the ICS, in the context of the new social science-influenced view of behavior as malleable. He also critiques Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1977) in light of this case study. Based on a master's dissertation at the U. of Ireland (no date given). Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Routledge International Handbook of Irish Studies begins with the reversal in Irish fortunes after the 2008 global economic crash. The chapters included address not only changes in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland but also changes in disciplinary approaches to Irish Studies that the last decade of political, economic, and cultural unrest have stimulated. Since 2008, Irish Studies has been directly and indirectly influenced by the crash and its reverberations through the economy, political landscape, and social framework of Ireland and beyond. Approaching Irish pasts, presents, and futures through interdisciplinary and theoretically capacious lenses, the chapters in this volume reflect the myriad ways Irish Studies has responded to the economic precarity in the Republic, renewed instability in the North, the complex European politics of Brexit, global climate and pandemic crises, and the intense social change in Ireland catalyzed by all of these. Just as Irish society has had to dramatically reconceive its economic and global identity after the crash, Irish Studies has had to shift its theoretical modes and its objects of analysis in order to keep pace with these changes and upheavals. This book captures the dynamic ways the discipline has evolved since 2008, exploring how the age of austerity and renewal has transformed both Ireland and scholarly approaches to understanding Ireland. It will appeal to students and scholars of Irish studies, sociology, cultural studies, history, literature, economics, and political science. Chapter 3, 5 and 15 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Focusing on women's relationships, life-circumstances and agency, Elaine Farrell reveals the voices, emotions and decisions of incarcerated women and those affected by their imprisonment, offering an intimate insight into their experiences of the criminal justice system across urban and rural post-Famine Ireland.

In Theology, Empowerment, and Prison Ministry Meins G.S. Coetsier offers a new account of Karl Rahner’s theological anthropology and the prison pastorate with a contemporary expansion for meaning, seeking an antidote to the suffering of those incarcerated with a “theology of empowerment.”

A place of incarceration and liberation, political debate and historical denial, the H Block cell units of Long Kesh/Maze prison in Northern Ireland housed members of both Republican and Loyalist military groups during 'The Troubles' and are now considered 'icons' of that conflict. The H Block's dual status as an articulation of and resistance against power mean that the area is still one of the most contested sites of conflict in Europe. Based on a long-standing site-specific investigation, and drawing on a range of sources from architectural plans to photographs of street protests, H Blocks explores the material relationship between the prison as a built articulation of power and its inhabitants, highlighting the ethical and political roles that architecture can play in situations of conflict. It also addresses the afterlife of such sites after the end of conflict and how they can adapt to the changing cultural meanings of their space. The book demonstrates how the conflicted histories of the prison are configured in its design and destruction, and the inhabitation and attempted preservation of the site itself, revealing how its architecture is bound up with questions of power and resistance, embodiment and attachment, witnessing and remembering, the materiality of history and its commodification.