Book Launch - Young Offenders: Children and crime in Ireland, 1850–1908 by Geraldine Curtin

Geraldine Curtin is a Library Assistant working in our Archives and Special Collections department in the Library at University of Galway. 

Geraldine has just published her second book, Young Offenders: Children and crime in Ireland, 1850–1908. In advance of the launch of her book I sat down with Geraldine to discuss the story behind its creation and our discussion began with a simple but important question as to what inspired her to write this book.

In 1998 Geraldine visited the National Archives and through conversation with an archivist she learned the National Archives held the prison registers for every jail in Ireland for the 19^th century.  The archivist showed her the prison register for Galway jail, and the contents immediately sparked her curiosity, particularly the large number of women and children listed in this register.  She decided to base her Master’s thesis on the women imprisoned in Galway in the 19^th century and later she pursued a PhD focusing on the children incarcerated in the jail during that time.  Arising from this research came her first book in 2001: The Women of Galway Jail: Female criminality in nineteenth-century Ireland and subsequently she has just published her second book which will be launched on Thursday, 4^th December 2025.

My instinct was to ask Geraldine how emotionally attached one might become to this type of research, but Geraldine explained that she generally felt a sense of professional distance, except on occasions when she came across individual stories from young children or letters from young girls inside the reformatories to their mothers describing their plight.

One of the challenges Geraldine faced when writing the book was deciding what to include and what to leave out because of the vast archival resources available on the study of crime in Ireland.  Geraldine noted the National Archives have a vast array of personal information on children and their families from the 19^th century and the depth of this information helped her enormously during her research.

I wondered if Geraldine had made any unusual discoveries in her research, she noted at the beginning of the research process she held the view that a child under the age of 7 could not be imprisoned for a crime, however this assumption was disproven when she  found a jail-register for 1847 and discovered several children aged between 2 and 6 being jailed for the crime of begging.  The Vagrancy (Ireland) Act of 1847 permitted the imprisonment of any child caught begging.  An image depicting the register of these young children appears in the book.  She also noted her research highlighted the number of people who tried to help these children have a better life.  This paved the way for the establishment of reformatories in Ireland, the only reformatory in the province of Connacht was for girls and opened in Ballinasloe in 1858.

Geraldine hopes that readers will gain a better understanding of Irish children in19^th century Ireland which she believes may lead to conversations and perhaps shape future curriculum reading.  We ended our conversation with a discussion on what advice Geraldine would give any aspiring author.  She suggested they should find a subject that genuinely interests them and talk to as many people as possible who work in that field.  She also emphasised the importance of attending conferences, lectures and seminars to find out what is happening in that field and read and keep reading!

Geraldines book will be launched on Thursday, 4^th December in the Library by Dr. Caitriona Clear, History Department.  Copies of the book are available in the Library and can be purchased from Kenny’s bookstore and Cork University Pres. 

 

Evelyn Bohan, Head of Learning, User Support and Engagment, Library, University of Galway