The book provides a quantitative and contextual analysis of homicide in pre-Famine and Famine Ireland, placing the Irish experience within a comparative framework and drawing wider inferences about the history of interpersonal violence in Europe and beyond.

The title provides a quantitative and contextual analysis of homicide in pre-famine and famine Ireland, placing the Irish experience within a comparative framework and drawing wider inferences about the history of interpersonal violence in Europe and beyond.

On the night of 29-30 October 1816 eight people were murdered by burning to death in a house in a remote part of County Louth, known locally as Wildgoose Lodge. Those killed included a five-month-old child. The perpetrators all belonged to a local agrarian secret society that was avenging the execution of three of their comrades hanged for an earlier raid on Wildgoose Lodge the previous April, following information given to the authorities by the owner of the house, Edward Lynch. Following the murder of Lynch, his family and servants the local community closed ranks. For months the authorities failed to arrest anybody in connection with the crime. Then the state administration took over. From Chief Secretary, Sir Robert Peel (later British Prime Minister) down to the police force operating in Louth there was massive collusion between Dublin Castle administrators, a corrupt chief police magistrate, lawyers and landlords in Louth to bring suspects to trial and prosecution. Four men on death row for unrelated crimes were reprieved and offered significant monetary rewards in return for giving evidence. Local informers - neighbours, friends and possibly relatives - of those murdered as well as those tried gave corroborating evidence. In the end eighteen men were executed and then gibbeted or dissected, at least half of whom were innocent. This was an awesome local episode with national implications which makes for an absorbing and intriguing story.

While most scholarly attention on violence in post-famine Ireland has focused on political crimes, this book examines non-political violence, which made up the vast majority of incidents in that period. Ireland's overall crime rate was below that of England and Wales, but the proportion of violent offenses to non-violent ones was significantly higher in Ireland. In Melancholy Accidents, Carolyn Conley decries the commonly-held belief that recreational and domestic violence was generally the result of understandable emotions. Conley demonstrates that the meaning of violence in post-famine Ireland was complex, personal, and often deeply traditional and idiosyncratic. This unique book will be valuable to a wide variety of scholars, including those who study women's history, European history, and social problems.

This study examines the violent world of north Cork during the Rockite disturbances of the early 1820s. Agrarian gangs attempted to regulate rural society, threatening or attacking those who ignored their decrees. Taking the killing of a Protestant family in 1823 as a case study, the author explores the tensions and pressures that led to this agrarian violence and relates how the authorities tried to bring the killers to justice and restore order in the countryside.

While Irish historical writing has long been in thrall to the perceived sectarian character of the legal system, this collection is the first to concentrate attention on the actual relationship that existed between the Irish population and the state under which they lived from the War of the Two Kings (1689-1691) to the Great Famine (1845-1849). Particular attention is paid to an understanding of the legal character of the state and the reach of the rule of law, with contributors addressing such themes as: how law was made and put into effect; how ordinary people experienced the law and social regulations; how Catholics related to the legal institutions of the Protestant confessional state; and how popular notions of legitimacy were developed. These themes contribute to a wider understanding of the nature of the state in the long eighteenth century and will therefore help to situate the study of Irish society into the mainstream of English and European social history.