About Us
The All-Ireland Network on Sexual Violence Research was created by Dr Eithne Dowds, Queen’s University Belfast, and Dr Susan Leahy, University of Limerick, as a means to connect sexual violence researcher across the island of Ireland.
We realised that researchers and practitioners working in this area were often isolated from one another, but working on very similar issues.
Eithne and Susan first discussed the idea of a network back in 2020, maybe even before, when we realised that researchers and practitioners working in this area were often isolated from one another but, working on very similar issues.
We received a small pot of funding from the Faculty Research Initiative Fund at Queen’s University Belfast to start the Network in 2021. Following some background work attracting members, building a website, and three maternity leaves later, we finally launched the Network in January 2024.
The network is led by Eithne and Susan and was awarded funding by Cuan, the Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Agency, Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, in September 2025 to facilitate our work. This funding will enable us to recruit Research Assistants to help with the running of the network and organisation of events Parliament.
What we do
The Networks objectives are to:
- facilitate and support academics, students, policy makers and external agencies in researching and responding to sexual violence across the island of Ireland;
- provide a platform for collaboration and knowledge exchange in the following thematic areas: Prevalence of sexual violence; Education and awareness; Support services; Criminal justice responses; Alternative responses; Law reform;
- provide opportunities for members to meet regularly in-person and/or online and engage with external stakeholders from across the island of Ireland.
Meet the Team
Dr Eithne Dowds
Dr Eithne Dowds is a Senior Lecturer in the Law School at Queen’s University Belfast.
Her research focuses on the legal construction of the crime of rape, with a particular focus on formulations of sexual consent, in international and domestic criminal law.
Her monograph, Feminist Engagement with International Criminal Law (Hart 2019) explored the relationship between consent and coercion as elements of the crime of rape. More recently, her work has focused on the trend towards the adoption of affirmative notions of consent, as well as legal framings of the accused’s mindset in respect of consent.
Eithne has responded to a range of consultations including those addressed to the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women. Eithne’s work on consent has been cited in the Gillen Review on the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences in Northern Ireland.
She is a member of the Legal Expert Council for the Conversations on Consent (CoC) Campaign and also has an interest in the law and procedure surrounding the prosecution of sexual offences more generally, co-editing a collection of papers on reform efforts in the context of Northern Ireland (Killean, Dowds and McAlinden, Sexual Offences on Trial, 2021).
Dr Elizabeth Agnew
Dr Elizabeth Agnew is a lecturer in the School of Law at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research examines young people who engage in a range of harmful behaviours, both on and offline.
A focus of her current research is on issues of consent and the complexities surrounding peer on peer harmful behaviours, in particular harmful sexual behaviours (HSB). Elizabeth just completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship (NINE) which centred on exploring young people’s understanding and experiences of consent within the context of ‘sexting’ (image sharing among young people) and the limitations of current regulatory frameworks. On the back of her PhD and PDF studies, Elizabeth published a sole-authored monograph entitled Cyberbullying and Sexting: Regulatory Challenges in the Digital Age, with Hart Publishing Ltd.
Elizabeth has also published a number of co-authored chapters and sole-authored/co-authored articles for a range of publishers and is a member of NOTA (Supporting Professionals to Prevent Sexual Abuse) NI Committee.
Elizabeth is also Interim Co-Director for the All-Ireland Network on Sexual Violence Research. The all Ireland network brings together academics, PGR students, practitioners and policy makers who work in the area of sexual violence.
Dr Susan Leahy
Susan Leahy is a senior lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Limerick.
Susan’s primary research interests lie in the areas of criminal justice (with particular emphasis on sexual violence and victims of crime) and family law (specifically domestic abuse and marriage).
She has published her research on sexual offences, victims’ rights and family law in both national and international journals including the Common Law World Review, the International Journal of Evidence and Proof, the Journal of Criminal Law, and the Child and Family Law Quarterly. She has co-authored two books: Sexual Offending in Ireland: Laws, Procedures and Punishment, (Clarus, 2018) (with Dr Margaret Fitzgerald-O’Reilly) and The Victim in the Irish Criminal Process (Manchester University Press, 2018) (with Prof Shane Kilcommins, Dr Kathleen Moore-Walsh and Dr Eimear Spain).
Susan has completed a number of funded research projects on sexual offences, gender-based violence and victims of crime. Her funded research includes a 2021 report, The Realities of Irish Rape Trials: Perspectives from Practice, which was funded by the Irish Research Council and conducted in partnership with Dublin Rape Crisis Centre. This research involved interviews with Irish legal professionals and court accompaniment workers who work within Irish rape trials.
She is currently working on Irish Research Council funded project with Sexual Violence Centre Cork which focuses on media reporting on sexual offences, seeking to draft guidelines for reporting on these cases in Ireland.