News Archive: Jan - June 2025
Professor Nicola Carr is one of the editors (with Harry Annison and Tom Guiney) of a new book on parole – Parole Futures. Rationalities, Institutions and Practices – published by Bloomsbury
Book Description
Does parole have a future? If it does, can we begin to imagine a different path? Is progressive penal reform possible, or has the time come to consider more radical alternatives in a context where there is little, if any, consensus on the underlying aims and techniques of contemporary prison release? What does this all mean for the prisoners, families, victims and publics upon whose confidence the parole system ultimately depends?
This book brings together a world-leading panel of 27 experts who draw upon insights from law, sociology, criminology and political science to explore these pressing questions. At a time when many parole systems are experiencing considerable strain, the aims of this collection are twofold: first, to encourage systematic and critical reflection on the rationalities, institutions and practices of parole. Second, to think big, and pose ambitious 'what if' questions about the possible futures of parole and prison release.
Offering novel insights from Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America, this collection builds the case for, and then showcases, a 'way of doing' parole research that is global in outlook, interdisciplinary in approach and unapologetically normative in character.
The editors and contributors will be discussing the book at specially convened roundtable at the European Society of Criminology in Athens on September 4th, 2025.
A link to the book can be found here
August 19, 2025
Dr Kate Antosik-Parsons and Dr Catherine Conlon are excited to announce the publication "Gender, nation and reproduction in the afterward of repeal and decriminalisation" in the Irish Journal of Sociology
The article co-authored by the ReproCit team Kate Antosik-Parsons, Catherine Conlon, Fiona Bloomer (Ulster University) and Emma Campbell (Ulster University) "Gender, nation and reproduction in the afterward of repeal and decriminalisation" has been published in the Special Issue: After the Review: What Next for Irish Abortion Services? in the Irish Journal of Sociology.
This article sketches out a conceptual framework for Reproductive Citizenship, expanding upon Bryan Turner's initial formulation of reproductive citizenship to encompass abortion. It features a second iteration of analysis of qualitative data-capturing experiences of accessing abortion in the Republic of Ireland between 2019 and 2021 alongside qualitative datasets from Northern Ireland to look at abortion experiences on an all-island basis. It proposes reproductive citizenship as generative in facilitating conceptualising abortion as lived, relational, embodied or fleshy when mobilised as a reproductive capacity.
The article is drawn from the larger Reproductive Citizenship study, an all-island research study looking at abortion on the island of Ireland, bringing together datasets for secondary analysis complemented with primary data collection.
The ReproCit Project was a HEA-funded North South Research Programme Project.
Citation: Antosik-Parsons, K., Conlon, C., Bloomer, F., & Campbell, E. (2025). Gender, nation and reproduction in the afterward of repeal and decriminalisation. Irish Journal of Sociology, 33(1-2), 30-47. https://doi.org/10.1177/07916035251342136
Other outputs from the ReproCit project can be found here.
August 08, 2025
Congratulations to Dr Catherine Conlon and Dr Kate Antosik-Parsons on the publication of the Special Issue: After the Review: What Next for Irish Abortion Services?
Dr Catherine Conlon (Associate Professor, School of Social Work and Social Policy) and Dr Kate Antosik-Parsons (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, School of Social Work and Social Policy), along with Dr Deirdre Duffy (Lancaster University), are delighted to announce the publication of the Irish Journal of Sociology Special Issue: After the Review: What Next for Irish Abortion Services?
This special issue, edited by Kate Antosik-Parsons, Catherine Conlon and Deirdre Duffy makes a significant contribution as it explores the changing landscape of abortion in Ireland from multiple perspectives, using a diverse range of methodological lenses and ways of knowing and speaking. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, embracing the different ways that actors within this landscape research and write about change, and drawing together overviews of the implementation of services with propositions for moving forwards. Importantly, it offers insights for other jurisdictions as well as scholars working on reproductive politics, health, and abortion beyond Ireland.
All articles are available open access.
Editorial
Kate Antosik-Parsons, Catherine Conlon and Deirdre N. Duffy
After the review: What next for Irish abortion services? Introduction to the
special issue
Articles
Kathryn Ammon and Catherine Conlon
From choice to labour: Understanding ‘aborting labour’ in Irish at-home
early medication abortion experiences
Kate Antosik-Parsons, Catherine Conlon, Fiona Bloomer and Emma Campbell
Gender, nation and reproduction in the afterward of repeal and
decriminalisation
Claire Murray and Mary Donnelly
Providing abortion care: Navigating the regulatory framework
Deirdre Duffy and Lorraine Grimes
More than committed providers: Healthcare providers, practice learning and
building abortion services in Ireland
Alana Farrell
After The Review: Law, abortion, reform and the legacies of information
restrictions
Mary Favier and Catherine Conlon
Abortion provision in Ireland: Implementation and advocacy, an Irish and
international perspective from practice
Ruth Fletcher
Witnessing legal sources of time for better abortion care
Carolina Uribe, Katie L. Togher, Sara Leitao, Keelin O’Donoghue and Deirdre Hayes-Ryan
Termination of early pregnancy in Ireland: Review of the first four years of
inpatient service at a tertiary maternity unit
Charlotte Waltz
Ethnographic fiction as feminist practice: Reflections on approaches to lived experiences in post-legalisation abortion governance in Ireland
August 08, 2025
Congratulations to the Postgraduate Diploma in Social Policy & Practice Students who recently graduated
The graduation ceremony for our ‘Social Policy and Practice PGDip’ class of 2023/24 took place on 11th July, among a large group of TCD graduates. It was a pleasure to meet many of the SPP students and their proud family members, and to chat in the glorious sunshine in Front Square.
July 17, 2025
National survey of intercountry adoption experiences launches
A new national survey of the lived experience of intercounty adoption for parents of children aged 0-12 has been launched this week by Dr Simone McCaughren in the School of Social Work and Social Policy in TCD and University College Cork. The survey forms part of a study exploring the experience of intercountry adoption from the perspectives of children (aged 0-12 years) and their families and has been commission by the Adoption Authority of Ireland. The survey can be accessed here.
July 17, 2025