Society for the Study of Nineteenth-Century Ireland
Twenty-First Annual Conference, Wednesday 26 – Thursday 27 June 2013
Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne
Crime, Violence and the Irish in the Nineteenth Century
Call for Papers
The Society invites proposals for its twenty-first annual conference which will address the theme of crime and violence in nineteenth-century Ireland and amongst Irish communities abroad. Crime, social protest, violence, insurgency, and responses to them, have long been fruitful topics of investigation for Irish historians yet they remain as relevant today as ever. Nineteenth-century Ireland experienced widespread social and political upheaval. Outbreaks of agrarian unrest, sectarian violence, increasing urbanisation, the growth of popular nationalism all presented challenges to the social order and were met with an official response which included centrally-controlled policing, recurrent coercive legislation and the expansion of the criminal justice system. We welcome individual twenty-minute papers or proposals for themed panels from scholars in all relevant disciplines. Postgraduates and early-career researchers are particularly welcome. Topics which might usefully be explored, but are by no means limited to, include:
- Secret societies: membership, aims, methods
- Urban crime: combinations and work-related violence
- Policing: challenges and responses
- The churches: clerical reactions to crime and violence
- Criminal justice system: efficacy and criticisms
- Cultural responses: crime and violence in literature, music, theatre.
- Historiography: new approaches to crime and violence
- The Irish abroad: the transported and disaffected revolutionaries
Keynote Speakers: Professor David Fitzpatrick (Trinity College Dublin) and Professor Virginia Crossman (Oxford Brookes)
Convenors: Professor Don MacRaild (Northumbria University) and Dr Kyle Hughes (Northumbria University). Please send proposals (200 word abstract) for twenty-minute papers or themed panels to kyle2.hughes@northumbria.ac.uk by 28 February 2013.