Dr. Richard Mc Mahon

Assistant Professor in Modern History

Research Interests

My primary research interests lie in the fields of modern Irish, Scottish and American history with a particular focus on the comparative and transnational history of violence and the law. I have a particular interest in the history of violence and the law in Ireland and among Irish migrants in Glasgow, San Francisco, New York and Toronto as well as in rural Ontario and Pennsylvania in the nineteenth century. I have also published work in the field of European criminal justice history and have a keen interest in interdisciplinary approaches to history. In collaboration with fellow researchers at the University of Cambridge, Ohio State University, the University of Bern and Winthorp University, I am a co-director of the Historical Violence Database. Prior to my arrival at Trinity College Dublin, I also held research fellowships at a range of universities outside of Ireland including Stanford University, New York University, the University of Tampere and the University of Edinburgh.

Select Publications

Monographs

Richard Mc Mahon, Homicide in pre-Famine and Famine Ireland (Liverpool University Press, 2013).

Edited collections /special editions of journals

Richard Mc Mahon and Andrew Newby (eds.), Ireland and Finland, 1860-1930: Comparative and Transnational Histories, special issue of Irish Historical Studies, 41: 160, November 2017.
Richard Mc Mahon (ed.), Crime, law and popular culture in Europe 1500-1900 (Willan Publishing, 2008).
Richard Mc Mahon, Randolph Roth and Joachim Eibach (eds.), Making sense of violence: essays on interpersonal violence in early modern and modern Europe (special edition of the journal Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies, 17.2, 2013).

Articles

Irish Chicagoans, Nationalism, and the Commemoration of Rebellion in 1898 in Enda Delaney and Ciaran O'Neill (ed.),Beyond the Nation, Éire-Ireland (special issue) 51: 1 & 2 Spr/Sum 16, pp. 218-242.
Histories of interpersonal violence in Europe and North America (1700-present) in Paul Knepper and Anja Johansen (ed.), Oxford Handbook on the History of Crime and Criminal Justice, 1750-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2015).
Making sense of violence? Reflections on the history of interpersonal violence in Europe in Richard Mc Mahon, Randolph Roth and Joachim Eibach (eds.), Making sense of violence: essays on interpersonal violence in early modern and modern Europe (special edition of the journal Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies, 17.2 2013, pp. 5-26).
The city and violence in Europe and North America: a historiographical review in Klaus Weinhauer and Dagmar Ellerbrock (eds.) City, violence and security since the 19th century (special issue of the journal Informationen zur Modernen Stadtgeschichte, 2.2013).
‘let the law take its course’: Punishment and the exercise of the prerogative of mercy in pre-Famine and Famine Ireland in Seán Patrick Donlan and Michael Brown (eds.), The Boundaries of the State: Law in Ireland, 1687-1850 (Ashgate, 2011), pp 133-164.
‘A violent society’? Homicide rates in Ireland, 1831-1850, Irish Economic and Social History, xxxvi, 2009, pp. 1-20.
The setting aside of jurors in pre-Famine Ireland in Laura Beck Varela (ed.), Yearbook of Young Legal History/Jahrbuch junge Rechtsgeschichte (Munich, 2009).
‘For fear of the vengeance’: the prosecution of homicide in pre-Famine and Famine Ireland in Richard Mc Mahon (ed.), Crime, law and popular culture in Europe 1500-1900 (Willan, 2008), pp. 138-189.
‘The madness of party’: sectarian homicide in Ireland, 1801-50, Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies, 11, 1, 2007, pp. 83-112.
‘Do you want to pick a fight out of me, or what do you want?’: homicide and personal animosity in pre-Famine and Famine Ireland in Katherine D. Watson (ed.), Assaulting the past: violence and civilisation in historical context (Newcastle, 2007), pp. 222-49.
The courts of petty sessions and society in pre-Famine Galway in Raymond Gillespie (ed.), The re-making of modern Ireland: essays in honour of J.C. Beckett (Dublin, 2003), pp. 101-137.
Manor courts in the west of Ireland before the Famine in Desmond Greer & Norma Dawson (eds), Mysteries and solutions in Irish legal history (Dublin, 2001), pp. 115-159..

Teaching and Supervision

I offer modules primarily in the field of modern Irish history at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I am particularly happy to supervise students working on the history of crime and the law and on modern Irish history and the history of migration from Ireland. As part of an inter-institutional agreement between Trinity and Carlow College, I am also designing, and contributing to, a new four year inter-disciplinary programme in Irish history and culture entitled 'Reimagining Ireland'.