Coercive Confinement in Ireland

Most of these people were simply locked up in state institutions, creating a shameful legacy that is only now being dragged into the light. Coercive Confinement in Ireland is a valuable contribution to that process., Andrew Lynch, Sunday Business Post|Some of the documents reproduced here give a powerful insight into the social mores of the time., Andrew Lynch, Sunday Business Post|"Coercive Confinement in Ireland deserves a readership well beyond its jurisdiction of interest.", Mark Finnane, Griffith University, Australia, Punishment & Society, 28 March 2013|This book is brilliant in conception, haunting in its emotional reach through the contemporaneous accounts, and altogether illuminating.
This is a hugely important, major and scholarly contribution to our understanding of the different forms and shapes of regulatory control., David Wilson, The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Howard Journal Vol 53 No 1, pp.104-115, 2014|"O’Sullivan and O’Donnell provide an outstanding insight into the raison d’être of these various institutions; their relationships with the state, the Church, and society at large (often forgotten); entry and (often torturous) exit pathways; the flow of individuals across institutions (transcarceration); the routines and practices employed therein; and the subjective experiences of the bad, the mad, the fallen and the vulnerable....This is an outstanding book, one which is superbly written and crafted."

(Shane Kilcommins, University College Cork, Irish Journal of Sociology, 2014), Shane Kilcommins, University College Cork, Irish Journal of Sociology, 2014|Overall, this is a fascinating collection and O’Sullivan and O’Donnell’s contextual introductory and concluding chapters are informative and thought provoking. The book will be useful to scholars interested in institutional care and also in teaching, with its short extracts providing interesting material for students to read and analyse through group work and individual reflection., Linda Moore, University of Ulster, Irish Studies Review, 10 November 2014|Overall, this is a fascinating collection and O’Sullivan and O’Donnell’s contextual introductory and concluding chapters are informative and thought provoking. The book will be useful to scholars interested in institutional care and also in teaching, with its short extracts providing interesting material for students to read and analyse through group work and individual reflection., Linda Moore, University of Ulster, Irish Studies Review, 23.1, 1 February 2015