Dr David Doyle presented a paper entitled ‘In the Shadow of Subversion: Capital Crime and Independent Ireland, 1923-2001’ at the British Crime Historians Symposium at the University of Edinburgh on Friday, 7 October 2016.
The paper charted the processes through which the death penalty evolved from an essential instrument of security to deter politically motivated offenders in the respective Irish jurisdictions to a position where the prospect of hanging (and the potential martyrdom) of terrorists, at least partially deterred successive British governments from reintroducing the death penalty for politically motivated offences in Britain and Northern Ireland.
Dr David Doyle is a Lecturer in Law at Maynooth University Department of Law where he lectures modules on Criminology and Criminal Justice