Gender and Punishment in Ireland

In the decades after Irish independence, 292 women were prosecuted for murder, facing the threat of conviction and death sentencing. Within a rising atmosphere of hostility to women, moral rigidity, sexual repression and Catholic Church control, this book explores the meanings and responses to women’s lethal violence in postcolonial Ireland. 'Beautifully written and comprehensively researched, this book is a vital addition to historical and criminological work on women, murder and punishment. Extending the literature on women who kill, Black goes beyond a focus on gender representation alone to examine the complex dynamics that influenced conviction, sentencing and punishment of women accused of murder in Ireland in the decades after independence.'Professor Lizzie Seal, University of SussexGender and punishment in Ireland: women, murder and the death penalty in Ireland, 1922–64 is the only book to examine the spectrum of women’s lethal violence in Ireland, exploring the state and public responses to female-perpetrated homicide and the sentencing and punishment of such women.Drawing on comprehensive archival research including government documents, press reporting, traces of public sentiment and the voices of the women themselves, the book contributes to the burgeoning literature on gender and punishment and women who kill, presenting, for the first time, the case of Ireland. Engaging with concepts such as ‘double deviance’, chivalry, paternalism and ‘coercive confinement’, the work explores the penal landscape for offending women in Ireland. The book presents an extensive interdisciplinary treatment of women who kill in Ireland and will be useful to scholars of gender, criminology and history.Gender and punishment in Ireland considers the position of women in postcolonial Ireland, tracing the lives of women before the courts, the offences for which they stood accused and the gendered punishment regimes that saw so many confined to religious control following conviction. Gender and punishment in Ireland explores women’s lethal violence in Ireland. Drawing on comprehensive archival research, including government documents, press reporting, the remnants of public opinion and the voices of the women themselves, the book contributes to the burgeoning literature on gender and punishment and women who kill. Engaging with concepts such as ‘double deviance’, chivalry, paternalism and ‘coercive confinement’, the work explores the penal landscape for offending women in postcolonial Ireland, examining in particular the role of the Catholic Church in responses to female deviance. The book is an extensive interdisciplinary treatment of women who kill in Ireland and will be useful to scholars of gender, criminology and history.