Specializes in Irish literature and culture, especially contemporary narrative, and cultural studies. He has published articles in Signs, The Journal of the History of Sexuality, Éire-Ireland, and ELH. His book, Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment (Notre Dame UP/Manchester UP), was published in 2007 and was awarded the Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book by the American Conference for Irish Studies. With Maria Luddy, he coedited a double special issue of  Éire-Ireland (Spring/Summer 2009) and the collection Children, Childhood, and Irish Society: 1500 to the Present (Four Courts Press, 2014). He recently coedited a double special issue of Éire-Ireland (Spring/Summer 2020) and the essay collection REDRESS: Ireland and Justice in Transition (forthcoming) on Transitional Justice and the ongoing legacies of institutional abuse in Ireland.  He is a member of the advocacy group Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) and co-author of Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (Bloomsbury, 2021).