Ian O'Donnell, University College Dublin

Ian O'Donnell MRIA is Professor of Criminology at University College Dublin and an Adjunct Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford. His last book, also published as part of OUP's Clarendon Studies in Criminology, was Prisoners, Solitude, and Time.

"... meticulous evaluation of primary sources ... an authoritative account of clemency in Ireland ... raises important questions about the role of gender in the adjudication of punishment ... This book will be useful to legal scholars, historians, sociologists, criminologists, abolitionists, and any laypeople who seek to drive their home countries away from practices rooted in cruelty and caprice, and towards policies rooted in justice and mercy." -- Muzzaker Mathias, Rutgers Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Book Review

"While this is a serious academic book, informed by criminological theory and wider socio-legal scholarship, the stories that O'Donnell uncovers, and describes in exquisite detail, could engage an audience beyond the academy ... This book is a pleasure to read. O'Donnell is skilled at weaving an engaging narrative from his rich empirical data ... A close reading of the text is repaid with some wonderful nuggets of detail, often hidden in footnotes, but together presenting a rich tapestry of clemency decision-making ... His critical lens zooms in to provide thick description of key variables in the cases that might account for clemency decisions, and then draws back to a wide angle to explicate the cultural, political, and legal factors that influenced decision-making. This makes for a beautifully produced monograph that deserves to be widely read." -- Carolyn Hoyle, Dublin University Law Journal

"...fascinating, thought-provoking ... original, consistently challenging, and sites Ireland's history in the wider world of imprisonment and punishment history ... [a] model for future work." -- William Murphy, Irish Economic and Social History

"In analysing the factors that led to the exercise of clemency and its aftermath, O'Donnell's extensive research sheds light on the exercise of State power in Ireland and the potent mix of politics, chivalry, morality and deference over time." - Nicola Carr, University of Nottingham (The Irish Times, January 2018)

"a masterful study ... a fine overview of the law and practice of capital punishment over the past century ... a compelling, thoughtful and extremely well-researched contribution with the potential to influence debates elsewhere in the world." William A. Schabas, (The Irish Jurist, Vol. 59, 2018)

"Ian O'Donnell's Justice, Mercy, and Caprice: Clemency and the Death Penalty in Ireland ('JMC' for short) is an exemplar of methodological rigour and literary verve ... O'Donnell's exhaustive research pierces the opaque operation of clemency. He delivers on his commitment to grasping the legal, political, and societal setting of clemency in order to understand it. The author has a special knack for zooming in and out when relating historical detail and the book is superbly written." David Prendergast, Trinity College Dublin (The Howard Journal, October 2018)