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British Journal of Criminology Advance Access originally published online on February 22, 2005
British Journal of Criminology 2005 45(5):671-695; doi:10.1093/bjc/azi015
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The British Journal of Criminology 45:671-695 (2005)
© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org

Lethal Violence in Ireland, 1841 to 2003

Famine, Celibacy and Parental Pacification

Ian O’Donnell*

* Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland; Email: ian.odonnell{at}ucd.ie.

Examination of recorded homicides in Ireland over a 160-year period reveals a trend that is in the same direction as found in other European countries: declining for around 100 years, then rising again. However, when the killing of babies is disaggregated from other killings, a different pattern emerges in that the secular decline is not reversed. It is argued that the virtual disappearance of baby killing is related to increasing respect for infant life and a marked increase in celibacy after the Famine of 1845–50. Other killings remained at a relatively high and stable level for the latter half of the nineteenth century. This is attributed to the persistence of ‘recreational’ violence. The decline in homicide from the turn of the twentieth century is related to emigration and the foundation, after 1922, of an independent Irish state.


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