Sinéad Ring

Dr Sinéad Ring

Law

Associate Professor

Location New House

Room 209

Phone (01) 4747776

Email Sinead.Ring@mu.ie

Biography

Dr Ring is a graduate of University College Cork (BCL (Law and German), LLM (Criminal Justice) and PhD. Her doctoral studies were funded by the Irish Research Council. Prior to joining Maynooth, Dr Ring was a Senior Lecturer and Co-Director of Graduate Studies at Kent Law School, University of Kent at Canterbury. She has also taught at University of Galway and University College Cork, and has held visiting positions at Osgoode Hall, Harvard Law School, Melbourne Law School and University of Technology, Sydney.

Dr Ring's research explores legal and institutional responses to sexual violence. She is the author of numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and is lead author of Child Sexual Abuse Reported by Adult Survivors: Legal Responses in England and Wales, Ireland and Australia (Routledge, 2022; 2024). Head of Abuse Law at Slater and Gordon, Richard Scorer, described the book as "a key text for academics and practitioners in this field." In 2020 Dr Ring was appointed by the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee TD for a statutory five year term to the Sentencing Guidelines and Information Committee of the Judicial Council.

In 2019 Dr Ring co-authored the Framework for Consent in Irish Higher Education Institutions. https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/678fee-framework-for-consent-in-higher-education-institutions-safe which sets out a new vision of how Irish HEIs can combat sexual violence and harassment against students. Dr Ring continues this work with the Higher Education Authority and at Maynooth University where she chairs the University's Consent Framework Implementation Group.

Dr Ring is a member of the editorial board of the leading international journal, Social and Legal Studies.

Dr Ring teaches The Law of Evidence and Gender Sexuality and Law to undergraduates. She designed the first and only postgraduate law course on questions of justice for historical gendered human rights abuses. Historical Gendered Violence and the State is available to all MA and LLM students.

Dr Ring has supervised numerous postgraduate students: including Dr Antonia Porter ("Prosecuting Domestic Abuse in England and Wales: Feminism, Neoliberalism and the Survivor's Voice" (2018) and Dr Aravinda Kosaraju, "Attrition in Cases involving Child Sexual Exploitation in England". She is currently supervising two PhD students:

Chloë Cass, "Left Out in the Cold: The Vulnerable Plaintiff in the Civil System" (funded by The Irish Research Council)
and
Kate Duffy, "Ireland's Surveillance Society: How Surveillance Practices Contributed to the Gendered Oppression of Irish Women." (with Dr Ciara Bracken-Roche). (funded by Maynooth University's Hume Scholarship)

Dr Ring welcomes potential research students in sexual violence and the law; law and gender; feminist legal studies; criminal law; the law of evidence and criminal justice.

Sinéad is happy to answer media queries about criminal law and evidence, criminal justice and sexual violence.

Research

Research Interests

Sinéad’s research explores how law creates social, cultural and political meanings about historical child sexual abuse for victim-survivors, perpetrators, institutional actors, and society. Using insights from psychology, political theory and criminology, her work unpacks law’s discursive power (in civil and criminal law and in commissions of inquiry), and imagines better legal responses to historical child sexual abuse.  Sinéad’s research on historical child sexual abuse has been funded by the Irish Research Council and the Socio Legal Studies Association. She has published in numerous international journals including The International Journal of Evidence and Proof and Social and Legal Studiesand edited collections.

Sinéad is also interested in legal responses to sexual violence against adults. The first strand of this work is around the role of law in the production of knowledge about sexual violence. She has published on the admission of counselling and therapeutic records in rape trials, and on the notion of consent to sexual intercourse in Irish law. The second strand of this work relates to the role of employment and anti-discrimination law in combatting sexual misconduct in higher education. At the University of Kent Sinéad was instrumental in the design of institution-wide policies on responding to and preventing sexual violence against students, and in successfully bidding for Higher Education Funding Council for England funds to support implementation of these polices. In November 2018 Sinéad was appointed by Minister for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O’Connor, T.D. to the Expert Advisory Group on Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Irish Higher Education Institutions. The group’s report, Safe, Respectful, Supportive and Positive. Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Irish Higher Education Institutionswas published in April 2019 and is available online here. The Report provides a framework for sectoral change to foster positive institutional cultures of respect, dignity and integrity that are effective in tackling sexual misconduct.  Sinéad is an editorial board member of feminists@law, an online open access journal of feminist legal scholarship (available online here).

Sinéad is happy to supervise research students working in the following areas: institutional violence and the State; sexual violence and the law; law and gender; feminist legal studies; criminal law; evidence law and criminal justice.

Research Projects

Title	Role	Description	Start date	End date	Amount
Sexual Experience Evidence and the Rape Trial	PI	This project will be submitted under strand 1a of the New Foundations Scheme	16/12/2022	15/09/2023	11999
Thematic Analysis of Universities' Procedures on Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence involving Students and Staff.	Principal Investigator	This project is a research tool for Dr Ring to use in her ongoing work in relation to institutional responses to sexual violence and sexual harassment in higher education institutions. The researcher will perform a thematic analysis of the policies and procedures identified in VP EDI funded project.	01/02/2022	28/02/2022	527
Comparative Examination of University and HEI Policies and Procedures on Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence involving Students and Staff	Principal Investigator	The project seeks to support Dr Ring’s work in identifying areas of best practice for the evolving area of policies and procedures relating to the handling of complaints relating to sexual violence and sexual harassment involving students at universities. Creating innovative and trauma-informed procedures for responding to complaints of sexual violence and harassment against staff and students is a key objective of Maynooth University’s work around creating a more equal and inclusive campus, and furthers its work in relation to implementing sectoral level guidance in this area. Specifically it will involve: 1. -identifying relevant policies and procedures, through internet searches and focused email contact with relevant university personnel. 2. -creating a searchable database of these policies and procedures using Excel, which will be saved on MU One Drive for use by Dr Ring and colleagues in the EDI office. 3. - identifying relevant academic texts on the topic, primarily using institutional research databases and creating a database of these texts. 4. - writing up a literature review of the key academic texts on this topic.	01/01/2022	31/03/2022	1318
Transitional Justice Processes as Archives of Collective Memory. The Case of Institutional Child Abuse.	Principal Investigator	Scholars have long been sceptical of the ability of transitional justice mechanisms such as truth commissions to establish a historical record of contested pasts (Arendt; Turner). This project seeks to engage with that literature by exploring what it might mean to think about legal processes dealing with historical violence as institutional archives of collective memory. Located at the intersection of transitional justice, the law of evidence, memory studies and critical archival studies, this project seeks to understand the Canadian experience of reckoning with revelations of abuse of children in Indian residential schools and to identify lessons for Ireland. Institutional abuse of children entered the public discourse in Ireland earnest in the 1990s when people began speaking about their experiences. The State was forced to respond following the outcry provoked by the States of Fear documentary (Raftery) which exposed systematic abuse of children in the former industrial and reformatory school system. In May 1999, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologised for the State and its citizens’ “collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue,” and promised to learn the lessons of the past. These promises took legal form with the creation of a statutory Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in 2000 and a Residential Institutions Redress Board in 2002. During the course their work, the Commission and the Redress Board received the testimonies of 15,367 survivors. The Commission’s final report found that sexual abuse was endemic in boys’ industrial schools and that there was pervasive neglect, physical and emotional abuse against boys and girls. It also found that the State failed to protect children in industrial and reformatory Schools. However, despite their significant findings, they have been criticised for failing to achieve full truth recovery or accountability (McAlinden; Pine et al). The State has yet to act on the first recommendation of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse: that a memorial to survivors of institutional abuse be created. It is not clear what will happen to the testimony of survivors who participated in these processes. This project seeks to answer the question of what comes next, now that the Commission and the Redress Board have concluded their vital work? How might the Irish State, and Irish society, begin the process of fostering a collective memory of historical institutional abuse? How might the State create new epistemic frames for hearing the experiences of survivors and for facilitating survivors in communicating their experiences of abuse - and of survival and healing - are fully articulated in all of their complexity? How do we bear witness to our dark past so that it is never repeated? The project forges a new path of scholarship to imagine the afterlives of transitional justice processes to deal with institutional child abuse. It investigates whether these processes can be understood as institutional archives of collective memory, that have reparative and truth-telling functions extending beyond the conclusion of the formal legal process. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada documented the impacts of the Indian residential schools system on Indigenous students and their families. It found that a cultural genocide had been perpetrated through the system and that sexual, emotional and physical abuse was widespread. Building on my previous work on epistemic justice the project will explore the ways in which Canada, has listened to survivors (testimonial justice) and provided appropriate frameworks within which survivors can be heard (hermeneutical justice), including giving voice to marginalised experiences and subjugated knowledges, such as those concerning the intersection of racialised identities and institutional abuse. In particular this research will map the legal landscape surrounding the preservation of testimony. Survivors gave evidence to the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission on an absolutely confidential basis, meaning that their testimony could not be opened to scholars or the public. However, in 2017 the Supreme Court of Canada held, in the case of Canada (Attorney General) v La Fontaine [2017] 2 SCR 205, that survivors could choose to deposit their testimony to the Commission with an archive in the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. This Centre is based at the University of Manitoba and the University of Ottawa. A key question for this project is how La Fontaine is being interpreted by lawyers and archivists in Canada, and how lawyers are working with archivists and survivor-activists to navigate issues of sourcing, privacy, redaction, archiving and access, as well how the archive of survivor testimony is presented to the wider public. A visit to the Law Faculty at Ottawa and to the archives of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation will allow me to interview relevant academic and practitioner lawyers and activist-survivors. Professor Cameron has promised to provide introductions to these stakeholders. I will also consult the archives and libraries of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at Ottawa and Manitoba. While some of these archives are online, key scholarly and legal texts are not. This research will make an important contribution to transitional justice scholarship on institutional abuse and to the emerging field of law and archive studies (Genovese et al). It will open up new interdisciplinary conversations about how the Irish State can recognise and honour the experiences of institutional abuse survivors and educate present and future generations about this painful chapter in our history. References Arendt, H. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Penguin, 2009. Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. Final Report. Government Publications, 2009. Genovese, A. et al, The Court as Archive. ANU Press, 2019. McAlinden, A M. “An Inconvenient Truth: Barriers to Truth Recovery in the Aftermath of Institutional Child Abuse in Ireland.” Legal Studies 3 (2013): 189-214. Pine, E et al. “Re-Reading the Ryan Report. Witnessing Via Close and Distant Reading.” Eire-Ireland: A Journal of Irish Studies 52.1-2 (2017): 198-215. Raftery, M. States of Fear. Radió Teilifís Éireann, 1999. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future. 2015. Turner, C. Violence, Law and the Impossibility of Transitional Justice. Routledge, 2017.	01/11/2021	31/03/2022	2500
Transitional Justice and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.	Principal Investigator		01/01/2021	31/12/2022	1000
The Prosecution of Historical Child Sexual Abuse in Ireland.	Principal Investigator				48000
Violence against Wo/men on Campus Project. University of Kent	Co-Investigator	https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/commons-committees/women-and-equalities/Correspondence/180706-Office-for-Students-Sexual-harassment-higher-education.pdf	01/06/2017	31/05/2017	50000
Is Redemption Possible Here? Law and Non-Recent Child Sexual Abuse.	Principal Investigator		01/01/2017	31/12/2018	2500
Wilful Ignorance? Exploring the Irish State's Failure to Protect Children From Sexual Abuse 1950-1990	Principal Investigator	This study will investigate the Irish State’s engagement with child sexual abuse from 1950-1990. Until recently child sexual abuse victims in Ireland who sought to report were not believed. In the 1990s a change in public awareness and attitudes towards victims led to unprecedented numbers of prosecutions for sexual abuse dating back decades. The frame of the project is complicity; how to talk about the blame, if any, to be attributed to criminal justice actors who turned a blind eye to abuse. It will explore how child abuse was understood by the State, as evidenced by a range of documentary sources relating to policy formation and implementation, legislative initiatives, social work, medical and legal texts and reports of inquiries. Feminist critiques of criminal law will be employed to investigate tensions between perceptions of child sexual abuse as constituting a ‘real harm’ that needs to be dealt with by criminal law, and perceptions of it as a matter of morality that should be dealt with by the Catholic Church. Particular attention will be paid to evidence of deference by the police to the Church. The research builds on Sinéad’s doctorate, part of which documented and explored victims’ testimony to Irish courts on how their contemporaneous attempts to report were frustrated by figures of State authority: police officers, social workers and teachers. The courts have erased these stories and have blamed the delay on individual defendants (Ring: 2013). They have not acknowledged the State’s failure over decades to protect victims, but have decided that officials were ignorant of sexual abuse. This narrative of ignorance persists, despite the findings of tribunals of inquiry that the State covered up and ignored abuse in institutional settings (Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Sexual Abuse (2009); Report of the Commission of Investigation into the Dublin Archdiocese (2011)), and a public apology by the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) to victims on behalf of the State. This study interrogates the narrative of ignorance by locating it in the context of State actors’ understanding of sexual abuse. The insights gained from this research will inform academic and public debates on the State’s relationship to the past and on how to enforce the criminal law on sexual abuse.	01/11/2016	01/06/2017	1767
Porter PhD. Prosecuting Domestic Violence in England and Wales	PhD supervisor		01/09/2014	30/07/2018	50000
Law and Society Conference	Principal Investigator	Funding for Law and Society Association Conference, USA>	01/05/2011	01/07/2011	1000
Research Visit at Harvard Law School	Principal Investigator		01/03/2010	01/08/2010	1500
PhD Project Year 1. Due Process and Historic Child Sexual Abuse	Principal Investigator		01/10/2007	30/09/2008	24000
Left Out in The Cold. The Vulnerable Plaintiff in the Irish Civil System - Chloe Cass	PI		01/09/2023	01/09/2025	61000

Publications

Book

	Year	Publication
	2022	Ring S.; Gleeson K.; Stevenson K. (2022) Child Sexual Abuse Reported by Adult Survivors: Legal Responses in England and Wales, Ireland and Australia. [DOI]

Peer Reviewed Journal

	Year	Publication
	2023	Lynsey Black and Sinéad Ring (2023) 'Historical Gendered Institutional Violence: A Research Agenda for Criminologists'. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 39 (1):17-37. [Link] [DOI] [Full-Text]
	2022	Sinéad Ring (2022) 'Applications to halt the trial of charges of non-recent child sexual abuse. The People (D.P.P.) v. C.Ce [2019] I.E.S.C. 94'. Irish Supreme Court Review, 3 . [Link] [Full-Text]
	2021	Kate Gleeson; Sinéad Ring (2021) 'Confronting the past and changing the future? Public inquiries into institutional child abuse, Ireland and Australia'. Griffith Law Review, 29 (1):109-133. [DOI] [Full-Text]
	2020	Mairead Enright; Sinéad Ring (2020) 'State Legal Responses to Historical Institutional Abuse: Shame, Sovereignty, and Epistemic Injustice'. Eire-Ireland; a journal of Irish studies, 55 (1 & 2):68-100. [Link] [DOI] [Full-Text]
	2017	Sinéad Ring (2017) 'Trauma and the construction of suffering in Irish historical child sexual abuse prosecutions'. International Journal For Crime, Justice And Social Democracy, 6 (3):88-103. [DOI] [Full-Text]
	2017	Sinéad Ring (2017) 'The Victim of Historical Child Sexual Abuse in the Irish Courts 1999–2006'. Social and Legal Studies, 26 (5):562-580. [DOI] [Full-Text]
	2015	Sinéad Ring (2015) '“Sexual Offence Complainants and Credibility: Why Virginity Testing is Pointless. R v L [2015] EWCA Crim 741.”'. Journal of Criminal Law, 79 (6):385-388. [Link] https://doi.org/10.1177/0022018315619268 [Full-Text]
	2015	Enright, M., Conway, V., De Londras, F. , Fletcher, R., McGuinness, S., Ui Chonnachtaigh, S., McDonnell, N. Murray, C., Ring, S., Donnelly, M. (2015) 'Abortion Law in Ireland: A Model for Change'. Feminists at Law, 5 (1):1-32. https://doi.org/10.22024/UniKent/03/fal.173 [Full-Text]
	2015	Enright, M. ; Conway, V.; De Londras, F.; Fletcher, R.; McGuinness, S.; Ui Chonnachtaigh, S.; McDonnell, N.; Murray, C.; Ring, S. and Donnelly, M. (2015) 'General Scheme of Access to Abortion Bill”'. Feminists at Law, 5 (1):18-50. [Link] https://doi.org/10.22024/UniKent/03/fal.174 [Full-Text]
	2014	Ring, Sinéad (2014) 'Analysing 'Fairness in Context' in Historic Child Sexual Abuse Prohibition Applications'. Irish Criminal Law Journal, 23 (4):132-141. [Full-Text]
	2012	Ring, Sinéad (2012) 'Due Process and the Admission of Expert Evidence on Recovered Memory in Historic Child Sexual Abuse Cases: Lessons from America'. International Journal of Evidence and Proof, 16 (1). https://doi.org/10.1350/ijep.2012.16.1.392 [Full-Text]
	2009	Ring, Sinéad (2009) 'Beyond the Reach of Justice? Complainant Delay in Historic Child Sexual Abuse Cases and the Right to a Fair Trial.”'. Judicial Studies Institute Journal, 2 :162-203. [Link] [Full-Text]

Book Chapter

	Year	Publication
	2022	Máiréad Enright and Sinéad Ring (2022) 'State Legal Responses to Historical Institutional Abuse: Shame, Sovereignty and Epistemic Injustice' In: Redress: Ireland and Justice in Transition. Dublin : UCD Press. [Link]
	2019	Ring S.; Enright M. (2019) 'State shame, sovereignty, and legal responses to historical institutional abuse' In: Philosophical Perspectives on Contemporary Ireland.
	2018	Sinéad Ring (2018) '‘Our most precious possession of all.’ The Survivor of Historical Child Sexual Abuse as the Ideal Victim?”' In: Revisiting the Ideal Victim Concept. Developments in Critical Victimology. Bristol : Bristol University Press. [Link]
	2018	Sinéad Ring (2018) 'On ‘delay’ and ‘duration’. Law’s Temporal Orders in Historical Child Sexual Abuse Cases' In: Law and Time. London : Routledge. [Link] https://www.routledge.com/Law-and-Time/Beynon-Jones-Grabham/p/book/9780367665302
	2017	Eilionóir Flynn and Sinéad Ring (2017) 'DPP v C. A Feminist Judgment on Consent in Rape Law' In: Northern/Irish Feminist Judgments. Judges' Troubles and the Gendered Politics of Identity. London : Bloomsbury. [Link]

Other Journal

	Year	Publication
	2014	Sinéad Ring (2014) 'The Pernicious Nature of Rape Myths and how they continue to Affect Rape Prosecutions' Feminists at Law, 4 (1) . [Link] https://doi.org/10.22024/UniKent/03/fal.103
	2009	Sinéad Ring (2009) 'Justice Denied? An Analysis of the Difficulties facing Applicants for Prohibition in Delayed Prosecutions for Child Sexual Abuse' First Law Criminal Law Online, . [Link]
	2006	Sinéad Ring (2006) 'Collateral Challenges to a Declaration of Unconstitutionality: A v Governor of Arbour Hill Prison [2006] IESC 45”' Schools of tomorrow, 14 :245-254. [Full-Text]

Published Report

	Year	Publication
	2020	Tony McMahon and Sinéad Ring (2020) Irish Universities Association Guidance for Universities. How to Respond to Alleged Staff or Student or University Related Sexual Misconduct. Irish Universities Association, . [Link] [Full-Text]
	2019	A. Looney, T. Browne, S. Cahill, L. Crowley, D. McLean, A. Power, P. MacNeela, S. Ring, C. Saidléar, (2019) Safe Respectful, Supportive and Positive. Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Irish Higher Education Institutions. Government of Ireland, . [Link] [Full-Text]
	2019	His Honour P. Rook (Chair); A. Rafferty; I. Bing; A. Rothwell; C. Yates; C. Rose; D. Calvert-Smith, D.; G. Akerman; J. Faure Walker; L. Tapper; L. Orrett; M. Lamb; N. Barnard; N. Lankey; P. Carter; V. Baird; S. Ring; T. Dempster, T.; V. Dow; T. Desai, T. (Rapporteur) (2019) Prosecuting Sexual Offences. JUSTICE, . [Link] [Full-Text]
	2006	Sinéad Ring (2006) Prosecution Appeals and Pre-Trial Hearings (LRC 81-2006). Law Reform Commission, . https://publications.lawreform.ie/Portal/External/en-GB/RecordView/Index/36050 [Full-Text]
	2004	Glen Gibbons and Sinead Ring (2004) A Fiscal Prosecutor and a Revenue Court (LRC 2004). Law Reform Commission, . https://publications.lawreform.ie/Portal/External/en-GB/RecordView/Index/35306 [Full-Text]

Conference Publication

	Year	Publication
	2009	Sinéad Ring (2009) Perspectives on Sex Offending: the Victim and the Offender *Allegations of Sex Offending and the Rights of the Accused* [Link]

Conference Contribution

	Year	Publication
	2023	Sinéad Ring (2023) Taking Survivors Seriously: What Practitioners can Learn from the Law's Engagement with Adults Reporting Childhood Sexual Abuse International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Online international webinar, .
	2023	Sinéad Ring (2023) Conference on Redress for Child Abuse Association of Personal Injury Lawyers London, .
	2022	Sinéad Ring (2022) Christie's Ideal Victim and The Survivor of Non-Recent Child Sexual Abuse Lecture to Critical Victimology MA University of Limerick, 29/11/2022-29/11/2022.
	2021	Sinéad Ring (2021) Current Developments in the law and policy on sexual violence Presentation to Irish Prison Service Smithfield, .
	2021	Sinéad Ring (2021) Reflections on Irish Universities' Implemention of the Consent Framework Invited keynote for event on the National Consent Framework organised by NUIG Vice President for Equality Diversity and Inclusion Prof Ann Scott NUI Galway, .
	2020	Sinéad Ring (2020) Legal Responses to Historical Child Sexual Abuse International Women's Day Spotlight on Gender, Feminist and Sexuality Research at Maynooth University Maynooth University, .
	2020	Sinéad Ring (2020) Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment in Irish Universities University of Birmingham Gender Research Group Virtual, .
	2020	Sinéad Ring (2020) Effective Procedures for Reporting and Investigating Reports of Sexual Misconduct against Students Panel Discussion - Consent at Maynooth University. Virtual Panel with Students Virtual, .
	2020	Sinéad Ring (2020) Discussant Maynooth University International Women's Day Event. Meet the Silence Breaker Laura Madden Maynooth University, 05/03/2020-.
	2019	Sinéad Ring (2019) Public Lecture to Celebrate 20 Anniversary of Brussels School of International Studies Stealthing and the Criminal Law Brussels School of International Studies, .
	2019	Sinéad Ring (2019) Child Abuse Inquiries- Law, Justice, Records and the Creation of Public History Irish Association of Law Teachers Conference Limerick, 22/11/2019-24/11/2019.
	2019	Sinéad Ring (2019) Launch of UCC Bystander Intervention Programme Launch of UCC Bystander Intervention programme University College Cork, .
	2018	Sinéad Ring (2018) #MeToo and the Rape Shield in Evidence Law Dublin City University International Workshop on Law of Evidence and Criminal Procedure Dublin City University, .
	2018	Sinéad Ring (2018) The 20th Century as the Children's Century Historical Child Sexual Abuse and Trauma and the Nation's Duty to Remember University of Warwick, .
	2018	Sinéad Ring (2018) Dublin Honours Magdalenes Event at Mansion House Dublin Mansion House, .
	2018	Máiréad Enright and Sinéad Ring (2018) Exploring the notion of shame in legal and political responses to historical gender based violence.” NUI Galway Research Seminar Series NUI Galway, .
	2018	Sinéad Ring (2018) Understanding New Rape Cultures Universities Efforts to end Sexual Violence against Students University College Dublin, .
	2018	Sinead Ring (2018) Resisting the Harms of ‘Innocence’ through Memories: an alternative histo- ry of child sexual abuse in Ireland Irish Conference of Historians. Sex Sexuality and Reproduction. Historical Perspectives University College Cork, 26/04/2018-28/04/2018.
	2018	Máiread Enright and Sinéad Ring (2018) “Shame, Sovereignty and Irish Legal Responses to Historical State Violence” Boston College International Conference on Transitional Justice, Truth-telling, and the Legacy of Institutional Abus Boston, USA, .
	2017	Sinead Ring (2017) “Historical Child Sexual Abuse Inquiries and the Nation's Duty to Remember: Reflections from Ireland. Conference: Is there a Democratic Deficit in Archives? Northumbria University: Archival Accountability Gap- Is Is There a Democratic Deficit in Archives? Northumbria University, 24/01/2017-26/01/2017. [Full-Text]
	2016	Sinead Ring (2016) State Complicity in Historic Child Sexual Abuse in Ireland University of Technology Sydney Faculty of Law Seminar Series Sydney Australia, .
	2016	Sinéad Ring and Clíona Saidléar (2016) Rape survivors access to abortion Abortion: the unfinished revolution Belfast, .
	2016	Sinéad Ring and Gethin Rees (2016) The Co-Production and Destabilisation of Rape Trauma Syndrome Institute for Advanced Legal Studies Workshop. Valuing Expertise: Legal, Normative and Social Dimensions Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, 20/09/2016-20/09/2016.
	2016	Sinéad Ring and Clíona Saidléar (2016) “Access to Abortion and the Needs of Survivors of Sexual Violence in Ireland” University of Ulster: Abortion and Reproductive Justice - the Unfinished Revolution II University of Ulster, 02/06/2016-02/06/2016.
	2015	Sinéad Ring (2015) Is Redemption Possible Here? Developing an Ethics of Memory for Historical Childhood Sexual Abuse in ireland Melbourne Law School Research Series Melbourne, Australia, .
	2015	Sinead Ring (2015) Researching Child Sexual Abuse in the Archives”, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland, 11 November, 2015. chives”, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Irelan School of Law and Government, Dublin City University Dublin City University, .
	2015	Sinéad Ring (2015) Expert Evidence under the Microscope Trauma as a Legal Category University of Southampton, .
	2015	Sinéad Ring (2015) The Juridification of Trauma in Delayed Child Sexual Abuse Prosecutions Institute for Criminal Justice Research, University of Southampton. Expert Evidence under the Microscope Institute for Criminal Justice Research, University of Southampton, 22/11/2014-.
	2015	Sinead Ring (2015) The EU Victims' Directive and Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse University of Limerick Conference on the EU Victims' Directive University of Limerick, 11/09/2017-.
	2013	Sinéad Ring (2013) North South Criminology Conference Trauma in Historical Child Sexual Abuse Prosecutions University College Cork, .
	2011	Sinead Ring (2011) Expert Evidence on Recovered Memory in Historic Child Sexual Abuse Cases Law and Society Association Conference San Francisco, .
	2010	Sinead Ring (2010) Repressed Memory Syndrome and the Role of Experts in Historic Child Sexual Abuse Prosecutions Harvard Law School Graduate Workshop Boston, 09/04/2010-.
	2010	Sinead Ring (2010) Constitutional Due Process and Reliability Determinations Regarding Expert Testimony on Recovered Memories of Child Sexual Abuse Irish Association of Law Teachers Conference Limerick, .
	2009	Sinead Ring (2009) Feminist Constructions of Credibility; Is a Complainant Always a Victim? Sibéal Gender and Women's Studies Network, UCD UCD, .
	2009	Sinead Ring (2009) When is a Victim a Feminist's Victim? Society of Legal Scholars Conference Keele, .
	2009	Sinead Ring (2009) The Incorporation of Victims' Experiences in Historic Child Sexual Abuse Prosecutions Socio Legal Studies Association Leicester, .
	2008	Sinead Ring (2008) Recalibrating the Scales of Justice North-South Criminology Conference DIT, .
	2008	Sinead Ring (2008) Balance, Delay and Due Process: How Balancing talk Affects Due Process in Delayed Prosecutions for Child Sexual Abuse Criminal Justice in Crisis, University of Aberdeen Aberdeen, .
	2006	Sinead Ring (2006) Justice in Transition: Where to now for judicial sentencing discretion? European Society of Criminology Annual Conference Tuebingen, .

Book Review

	Year	Publication
	2010	Ring, Sinéad (2010) General Principles of Law in the Decisions of International Criminal Courts and Tribunals by Raimondo, Fabian.”. Netherlands: [Book Review] [Link]

Editorial

	Year	Publication
	2013	Sarah Keenan and Sinéad Ring (2013) A Response to the LSE Event “Is Rape Different?”. [Editorial] [Link] https://doi.org/10.22024/UniKent/03/fal.80

Consultancy

	Year	Publication
	2022	Sinéad Ring (2022) Extraction of Victims' Digital Data in Sexual Offences Investigations. [Consultancy]

Policy Contribution

	Year	Publication
	2020	Sinéad Ring (2020) In-person presentation to Minister for Higher and Further Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris T.D. Developing Appropriate Policies and Procedures to Respond to Sexual Misconduct in Higher Education Institutions. [Policy Contribution]
	2019	Eileen Molloy and Sinéad Ring (2019) Submission to the Oireachtas Committee on the Retention of Records Bill 2019. [Policy Contribution] [Link]
	2019	Máiread Enright; Maeve O'Rourke and Sinéad Ring (2019) Submission to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills on the Retention of Records Bill 2019. [Policy Contribution] [Link]
	2019	C. O' Mahony, F Logue, M O'Rourke, J. Gallen, E. Daly, M. Enright, S. Ring, R. McMahon, L. Cahillane (2019) Legal Opinion. Opinion on the application of the Irish Constitution and EU General Data Protection Regulation to the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill 2016 and the Government’s ‘Options for Consideration’ dated 5th November 2019. [Policy Contribution] [Link] [Full-Text]
	2019	Vicky Conway and Sinéad Ring (2019) Submission to Department of Justice's Review of Part 4 of the Sexual Offences Act 2017. [Policy Contribution]
	2016	Enright, M. ; Conway, V.; De Londras, F.; Fletcher, R.; McGuinness, S.; Ui Chonnachtaigh, S.; McDonnell, N.; Murray, C.; Ring, S. and Donnelly, M. (2016) Submission to the Citizens’ Assembly of Ireland Regarding a Proposed Model Law on Abortion. [Policy Contribution] [Link] https://2016-2018.citizensassembly.ie/en/Submissions/Eighth-Amendment-of-the-Constitution/Submissions-Received/
	2013	Helen Carr, Per Laleng, Rosemary Hunter, Sinead Ring, Elaine Sherratt, Richard Warren, Lucy Welsh , Sheona York (2013) Proposed Reforms of Legal Aid in the UK. Response to Consultation by Kent Law School. Kent: [Policy Contribution] [Link]

Invited Lectures

	Year	Publication
	2022	Sinéad Ring (2022) State Shame, Sovereignty and Legal Responses to Historical Institutional Abuse. [Invited Lectures]
	2014	Sinead Ring (2014) Universidad de Castilla la Mancha. Feminist Activism and Scholarship in the UK in 2014. [Invited Lectures]

Invited Seminars

	Year	Publication
	2022	Sinéad Ring (2022) Maynooth Sparks event: Legal Responses to historical Child Sexual Absue. [Invited Seminars]
	2015	Sinéad Ring (2015) Historical Child Sexual Abuse and an Ethics of Memory. [Invited Seminars]
	2015	Sinead Ring (2015) Interrogating the Irish State's Wilful Ignorance on Child Sexual Abuse in the Past. Dublin: [Invited Seminars]

Magazine Article

	Year	Publication
	2017	Sinéad Ring, De Elizabeth (2017) Switzerland Court determined 'stealthing' is not rape. [Magazine Article] [Link]

Magazine Article

	Year	Publication
	2020	Sinéad Ring and Lisa Connell (2020) Dáil Passes controversial bill sealing Mother and Baby Homes records for 30 years. [Magazine Article] [Link]

Blog

	Year	Publication
	2018	Sinéad Ring (2018) Disclosure failures erode confidence in criminal justice. [Blog] [Link]
	2015	Sinéad Ring (2015) The Irish Marriage Referendum. [Blog] [Link]
	2015	Sinead Ring (2015) Idealism, Nationalism and the Betrayal of Irish Children. [Blog] [Link] [Full-Text]
	2013	Sinead Ring (2013) Proposed Reforms of Legal Aid in the UK. [Blog] [Link]
	2010	Sinéad Ring (2010) New Garda Sex Offences Unit to be Established. [Blog] [Link] [Full-Text]
	2010	Sinéad Ring (2010) Cardinal Brady and the Civil Action Taken by alleged victim of Brendan Smyth. [Blog] [Link] [Full-Text]
	2010	Sinéad Ring (2010) HSE Dublin North East Region and complaints of child abuse. [Blog] [Link]
	2010	Sinéad Ring (2010) Carlin v DPP: Prosecutorial Discretion and the Decision (not) to Prosecute. [Blog] [Link] [Full-Text]
	2009	Sinéad Ring (2009) The Safety of Sex Workers. [Blog] [Link]
	2009	Sinéad Ring (2009) Implementation of the Ryan Report and Children in Care. [Blog] [Link] [Full-Text]
	2009	Sinéad Ring (2009) LRC Report on Criminal Defences. [Blog] [Link]

Newspaper Articles

	Year	Publication
	2022	Sinéad Ring, Cate McCurry (2022) Consent Defence in Rape will be Changed. [Newspaper Articles] https://www.pressreader.com/ireland/irish-daily-mirror/20220813/282209424635901
	2021	Sinéad Ring, (2021) We can't say it is too difficult. Could criminal investigations into Ireland's mother and baby homes happen?. [Newspaper Articles] [Link]
	2020	Sinéad Ring, Kara Fox (2020) reland’s mother and baby home survivors have spent decades fighting for the truth. They can finally see an end in sight. [Newspaper Articles] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/30/europe/ireland-mother-baby-homes-commission-intl/index.html
	2019	Sinéad Ring, Lizzie Deane (2019) Abused All Over Again. [Newspaper Articles] [Link]
	2017	Sinéad Ring, Noel Baker (2017) Ireland tolerated abuse of children says expert. [Newspaper Articles] [Link]
	2010	Sinead Ring (2010) Representations of Justice in Sexual Abuse Cases. London: [Newspaper Articles] [Link] https://www.theguardian.com/law/2010/may/11/guidance-trial-judges-sexual-abuse-cases [Full-Text]

Radio Presentation

	Year	Publication
	2019	Sinéad Ring (2019) Morning Ireland Interview: Committee to discuss proposed legislation on records of redress bodies. Dublin: [Radio Presentation] [Link]
	2019	Sinead Ring (2019) Today with Seán O'Rourke: Retention of Records. Dublin: [Radio Presentation] [Link]
	2016	Sinéad Ring (2016) Sexual Consent and the Law. [Radio Presentation] [Link]
	2018	Sinéad Ring (2018) The Abortion Referendum in Ireland. Kent: [Radio Presentation]

Video recording / TV

	Year	Publication
	2011	Sinéad Ring (2011) The Criminal Law (Defence of the Dwelling) Bill. [Video recording / TV] [Link]

Working Paper

	Year	Publication
	2011	Sinead Ring (2011) The Rule of Law and Historic Child Sexual Abuse Prosecutions. NUI Galway Working Papers Series. [Working Paper]

Podcast

	Year	Publication
	2020	Vicky Conway, Osgur Breatnach, Sinéad Ring (2020) Policed in Ireland The Sallins Train Robbery. Dublin: [Podcast] [Link]

Published Interview

	Year	Publication
	2020	Cara Fox, Sinéad Ring (2020) CNN: Ireland's mother and baby home survivors have spent decades fighting for the truth. They can finally see an end in sight. www.cnn.com: [Published Interview] [Link]

Other Publication

	Year	Publication
	2021	Sinéad Ring (2021) The Importance of Effective Policies and Procedures on Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment.
	2021	Sinéad Ring (2021) Disclosures and Responsibility to Support, Investigate and to Act.
	2017	Sinéad Ring (2017) Thinking about Consent.
	2015	Sinead Ring (2015) Prosecuting Clerical Child Sexual Abuse in Ireland.

Professional

Professional Associations

Description	Function	From / To
Socio Legal Studies Association	Member	-
Irish Penal Reform Trust	Member	-
Irish Council for Civil Liberties	Member	-
Association for Criminal Justice Research and Development	member	-

Honors and Awards

Date	Title	Awarding Body
01/10/2003	College Scholar	University College Cork
01/10/2007	Faculty of Law Doctoral Scholarship	University College Cork
01/10/2008	Doctoral Scholarship	Irish Research Council for the Humanities and the Social Science

Committees

Committee	Function	From / To
Sentencing Guidelines and Information Committee of the Judicial Council	Member	01/07/2020 - 30/06/2025
Feminists at Law Journal	Editorial Board Member	07/01/2013 -
Higher Education Authority Expert Advisory Group on Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment	Member	01/02/2021 -
Department of Law Research Committee	Member	01/10/2019 -
Expert Committee on Consent Framework	Member	01/10/2018 - 01/04/2019

Employment

Employer	Position	From / To
University College Cork	Part-Time Lecturer	-
University of Kent		07/01/2013 - 31/08/2019
National University of Ireland Galway	Lecturer	01/09/2010 - 30/06/2012
Maynooth University		01/09/2019 -

Education

Institution	Qualification	Subject
NUI Galway	PG Certificate in Teaching and Learning	Teaching and Learning at Third Level
University College Cork	PhD	Law
University College Cork	LLM (Criminal Justice)	Law and Criminal Justice
University College Cork	BCL (Law and German)	Law and German

Languages

	Language	Reading	Writing	Speaking
	German	Functional	Functional	Functional

Consultancy

	Client	Description
	University College Cork	Reviewer of LLM (Criminal Justice) Programme for the Law Department

Editorial / Academic Reviews

	Amount	Role	From / To
	Feminists at Law	Member of the Editorial Board	-
	Social and Legal Studies	Member of the Editorial Board	-

Teaching

Teaching Interests

Sinéad teaches Criminal Law I and II , The Law of Evidence, Gender Sexuality and Law (Undergrad and Postgraduate courses), Historical Gendered Violence and the State.

She is happy to supervise research students working in the following areas: institutional violence and the State; sexual violence and the law; law and gender; feminist legal studies; criminal law; evidence law and criminal justice.

Current Students

	Student Name	Degree	Supervision
	MS K. DUFFY	RESEARCH PH.D. (10)
	MS C. CASS	RESEARCH PH.D. (10)

Recent Students

	Graduation date	Name	Degree
	2019	Antonia Porter	PhD
	2017	Aravinda Kosaraju	PhD

Collaborators

External Collaborators

Name	Role	Country
Professor Kim Stevenson	Co-author	United Kingdom
Mairead Enright	Co-Author	United Kingdom
Dr Kate Gleeson	Co-Author	Australia

Research

Undergraduate Studies

Postgraduate Studies

International

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Sinéad Ring

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Video recording / TV

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Committees

Employment

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Languages

Consultancy

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Teaching Interests

Current Students

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