I hold a Ph.D in History from the University of Limerick (UL – 2007). I also hold a BA in History, Political Science and Sociology from NUI Galway (2002), a H.Dip.Ed. from University College Dublin (2003) and an MA in History from UL (2004).
Between 2015 and 2016, I worked as a Senior Researcher for the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland.
My first monograph, Ireland’s ‘moral hospital’: the Irish borstal system, 1906-1956 was published in 2009 by Irish Academic Press. My second monograph, Criminal Irish Drunkards in the Inebriate Reformatory System, 1900-1920 was published by The History Press in December 2014.
My third monograph, Mutiny or Murder, an account of a disastrous 1817 convict voyage between Cork and New South Wales – was published by The History Press Ireland in mid-2018.
I now work full-time as a self-employed freelance Copy-Editor and Indexer.
Areas of expertise
Juvenile criminality and its punishment in twentieth century Ireland; the Irish penal system 1877-1921; social history of early twentieth-century Ireland; gender and drunkenness in Ireland 1900-1920; institutions in twentieth-century Ireland.
Mutiny or Murder: the bloodsoaked voyage of the Chapman convict ship (The History Press; Dublin, June 2018).
Criminal Irish Drunkards: the inebriate reformatory system in Ireland 1900-1920 (The History Press; Dublin, December 2014).
Ireland’s ‘Moral Hospital: The Irish borstal system, 1906-1956 (Irish Academic Press; Dublin, November 2009).
Book Chapters
‘The most dangerous, reckless, passionate … period of their lives’: the Irish borstal offender, 1906–192’, in Catherine Cox and Susannah Riordan (eds), Adolescence in Modern Irish History: innocence and experience (London: Palgrave Studies in the History of Childhood, 2015).
‘Poverty, Alcohol and the Women of the State Inebriate Reformatory in Ireland, 1900-1918’, in Christina Brophy and Cara Delay (eds), Women, reform and resistance in Ireland, 1850-1950: ordinary and outcast (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015).
‘Loose and immoral lives’: prostitution and the female criminal inebriate in Ireland, 1900-18’, in Jennifer Redmond, Sonja Tiernan, Sandra McAvoy and Mary McAuliffe, Sexual Politics in Modern Ireland (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2015), pp. 53-72.
‘Education in Burgess, 1700-1900’ in Denis Floyd (ed.), In the shade of Arra (Tipperary, 2011).
Reviews
Richard McMahon, Homicide in pre-Famine and Famine Ireland (Liverpool, 2014) http://www.history.ac.uk (Institute of Historical Research, UK).
Eoin O’Sullivan and Ian O’Donnell, Coercive confinement in Ireland: patients, prisoners and penitents (Manchester, 2012) in Irish Historical Studies (May 2013).
Moira J. Maguire, Precarious childhood in post-independence Ireland (Manchester, 2010) in Irish Studies Review (October 2010).
Clive Emsley, Crime, police and penal policy: European experiences 1750-1940 (Oxford, 2007) in History Studies volume eight (2007).
