Education

Clay Darcy

Lecturer

Tel: +35312207414

Dr Clay Darcy is a sociologist and lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, Law, and Education at Technological University Dublin. He is the Programme Coordinator for the BA in Early Childhood Education and Care (TU790/989) on the Blanchardstown Campus, and he is a member of the Academic Quality Enhancement Committee (Faculty of Arts and Humanities). Prior to joining TU Dublin, Clay worked in the fields of education and youth work; he was also a tutor and an associate lecturer at other higher education institutions. Clay is a practicing visual artist, his work is predominantly figurative, exploring themes relating to nature and the ephemeral.

Teaching subject areas: sociology of childhood; wellbeing, identity and belonging; collaborating with families and communities; and research methods.

Research interests: Montessori education, drug education, wellbeing, gender and masculinities, policing and historical crime.

Current Postgraduate Research Supervision:

(Co-supervisor) PhD Jonathan O’Brien - “Interventions in Youth Offending: who supports young people through the criminal justice system? A case study of the Garda Síochána Strategic Approach to Offender Recidivism – Youth Crime Case Management programme”.

(Co-supervisor) PhD Deirbhile Nic a Bháird – “The Impact of Digital Communications on Children's Affective Development” (Funded by the Irish Research Council).

Clay welcomes research supervision opportunities in areas such as drug use, education, masculinities, child and youth wellbeing.

Qualifications

2017 - Doctor of Philosophy (Sociology), University College Dublin.

2013 - Master of Social Science (Sociology), University College Dublin.

2008 - Diploma in Web Design, Dublin Business School.

2005 - Bachelor of Business in Human Resource Management, National College of Ireland.

2003 - Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) in Art and Design Education, National College of Art & Design.

Recent Publications:

Peer Reviewed Publications

Darcy, C. (2026). Assembling a Vignette of Irish Police Masculinities through Socio-historical Rural Crime Research. The Journal of Historical Criminology, 2 (2): 131-151. https://doi.org/10.21428/4b74e090.7b41a802.

Darcy, C. and Ridge, J. (2026). On the Margins of Mainstream: A historical timeline of Irish Montessori education in the context of Irish primary curriculum. Education 3-13 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2026.2692711.

Darcy, C. (2025). Police Records and Rural Crime in 1940s Ireland: The Challenges of Using Historical Documents as Primary Sources in Sociological Research. In Sage Research Methods Cases Part 1. SAGE Publications, Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781036209124.

Darcy, C. (2024). From Focus Groups in Community Settings to In-depth Interviews in Pubs: A Case Study on Researching Irish Men, Masculinities and Illicit Drug Use. In Sage Research Methods: Diversifying and Decolonizing Research. SAGE Publications, Ltd., https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529682335

Darcy, C. (2023). From larceny and concealed births to indecent assault and attempted suicide: A sociological analysis of rural crimes committed in three small Irish villages between 1941-1943. International Journal of Rural Criminology, 8 (1): 82-16. doi: https://doi.org/10.18061/ijrc.v8i1.9375

Darcy, C. (2021). Cohesive magic, creative expression: Community arts in Ireland and their beneficial role in Youth Work and Community Development. Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies, 21, (1): 73-84. https://doi.org/10.21427/637n-bh23

Darcy, C. (2021). Drug Education Best Practice for Health, Community and Youth Workers: A Practical and Accessible Tool-kit’. Health Education Journal, 80, (1): 28-39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0017896920950338

Darcy, C. (2020). Precarious Positions of Understanding: The Illicit Drug Landscape and Drug Education in Ireland. Irish Educational Studies, 40, (1): 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/03323315.2020.1779111

Darcy, C. (2020). Men and the Drug Buzz: masculinities as an interpretative lens for understanding men’s recreational use of illicit drugs. Sociological Research Online, 25 (3): 421-437. https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780419879940

Darcy, C. (2020). A Psychoactive Paradox of Masculinities: cohesive and competitive relations between drug taking Irish men. Gender, Place and Culture, 27 (2): 175-195. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2019.1609427

Darcy, C. (2019). “We don’t really give a fiddlers about anything”: The ambiguity, contradiction and fluidity of Irish masculinities. Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies, 19, (1): 16-32. doi: https://doi.org/10.21427/aa58-qr67

Darcy, C. (2018). “You're with your ten closest mates ... and everyone is in the same kind of boat”: Friendship, Masculinities and Men's Recreational Use of Illicit Drugs. AMITY: The Journal of Friendship Studies, 5 (1): 43-57. doi: 10.5518/AMITY/27

Darcy, C. (2018). The Precarious Position of Drug Education and Prevention Workers in Ireland. The Economic and Social Review, 49 (3): 361-372.

Darcy, C. (2018). Making the invisible visible: masculinities and men’s illicit recreational drug use. Irish Journal of Sociology, 26 (1): 5-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0791603517735772

Book Chapters

Darcy, C. and Tuite, E. (2023). Drug Misuse and Social Care. In: Share, P. and Lalor, K. (2023) Social Care Work: An introduction for students in Ireland (4th Ed). Dublin: Institute of Public Administration.

Book Reviews

Darcy, C. (2025). Review of ‘Geographies of Gender – Family and Law in Imperial Japan and Colonial Taiwan’, by T. Ishikawa. Cambridge University Press. In: Aigne, 11 (1) 382-384. doi: 10.33178/aigne.vol11.b5

Darcy, C. (2018). Review of ‘Boys, Masculinity and Reading – Gender Identity and Literacy as Social Practice’ by Laura Scholes. Routledge. In: NORMA International Journal for Masculinity Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2018.1545172.

Darcy, C. (2016). Review of ‘Indigenous Masculinities – legacies, identities, regeneration’ by Robert Innes and Kim Anderson. University of Manitoba Press. In: NORMA International Journal for Masculinity Studies, Published Online May 2016. https://doi.org/10.1080/18902138.2016.1181407.

Darcy, C. (2016). Review of ‘Gender Roles in Ireland - Three decades of attitude change’ by Margaret Fine-Davis. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. In: Irish Journal of Sociology, April 2016, 24, 128-130. https://doi.org/10.7227/IJS.0016b.

Darcy, C. (2016). Review of ‘Key Concepts in Drugs and Society’ by Coomber, McElrath, Measham and Moore. Sage Publications. In: Irish Journal of Sociology, April 2016, 24, 125-128. https://doi.org/10.7227/IJS.0016a.

A full list of publications can be viewed at: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3672-4401