Peer-Reviewed Journal Details
Mandatory Fields
Ciara Breathnach
2020
June
Health and History
Capital Punishment in Irish Prisons, 1868–1901
Published
()
Optional Fields
Capital punishment, prisons, gender, Irish History
20
1
104
125
Capital punishment was used with caution in post-Famine Ireland, and when it was handed down, it was routinely commuted to penal servitude for life. Drawing primarily on General Prison Board and coronial court records, this article adopts a Foucauldian lens to examine the procedure with respect to executions in a representative sample of agrarian, political, and domestic abuse cases that came before the Home Circuit and Dublin Commission after the Capital Punishment Act 1868. The cases discussed share a threshold of heinousness that not only assured public support of the most extreme punishment, it also justified hanging in a volatile sociopolitical environment.
Australian and New Zealand Society of the History of Medicine
DOI: 10.5401/healthhist.22.1.0104
Grant Details
Irish Research Council Laureate Award 2017/32