Sociology in Ireland: Legacies and Challenges

Abstract

Looking at the history of sociology in modern Ireland we can observe a constant oscillation between continuity and rupture. However, we are somewhat reluctant to interpret this as a kind of Irish Sonderweg or Irish exceptionalism. What remains noticeable though is a relatively late willingness to connect to the outside world – culturally and intellectually. This is partly explained by several decades of Catholic institutional dominance. The challenges since late secularisation of the field occurred in the 1970s have included epistemological dominance of the rather narrow posivitist type. Within this context university-based sociologists and sociologies have often been perceived as self-marginalised figures and paradigms. As we approach the new millennium the situation of sociology as a discipline is less precarious compared to earlier times. However, new institutional challenges, such as the metrics increasingly used to evaluate scholarship, have called more traditional notions of the discipline into question.