Ring, Sinead
(2017)
The Victim of Historical
Child Sexual Abuse in
the Irish Courts 1999–2006.
Social and Legal Studies, 26 (5).
pp. 562-580.
ISSN 0964-6639
Abstract
In recent years, Ireland has been rocked by revelations of historical child sexual abuse.
This has led to a variety of state responses but one question remains particularly difficult
to answer: why did the sexual abuse of children go unrecognized as a societal problem
for so long? This article seeks answers by scrutinizing cases in which defendants sought
to have their trial prohibited because of the delayed reporting. It explores the legal test
used in the period 1999–2006, which focussed on the abuser’s ‘dominion’ over the
victim. The use of the notion of dominion elicited valuable information about the reasons
for the delay and how children were silenced. Uncovering these stories is essential to
understanding the dynamics of child sexual abuse. However, a critical reading of the delay
cases that draws on feminist critiques of battered woman’s syndrome and rape trauma
syndrome reveals law’s power to impose hegemonic discourses onto victims and to
produce new histories. Under the dominion paradigm, the courts distorted victims’
accounts of their experiences and sidelined stories that pointed towards a culture of
indifference to abuse. Thus, law is shown to occupy a paradoxical position in relation to
Ireland’s history of child sexual abuse.
| Item Type: |
Article
|
| Keywords: |
Battered woman’s syndrome; feminism; historical child sexual abuse; Ireland; law and
history; rape trauma syndrome; victims; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Law |
| Item ID: |
12306 |
| Identification Number: |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0964663917694706 |
| Depositing User: |
Sinead Ring
|
| Date Deposited: |
30 Jan 2020 15:00 |
| Journal or Publication Title: |
Social and Legal Studies |
| Publisher: |
SAGE Publications |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
Repository Staff Only(login required)
 |
Item control page |
Downloads per month over past year
Origin of downloads
Altmetric
Altmetric