From independence in 1922 until the abolition of the death penalty in 1990, 25 women were convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Only one ultimately met the hangman.

This talk explores their lives, crimes, and punishments. Although extraordinarily rare, women’s lethal violence in this period can reveal much about Irish women’s hidden, domestic lives, about family power struggles and sexual politics.

Although all but one of the condemned escaped the noose, the detention of many women instead in sites of religious confinement amounted to a sentence of social death.

Note: Limited spaces, booking essential.