The Loughan House controversy

In October 1978, a detention centre known as Loughan House opened near Blacklion, Co. Cavan for young offenders between twelve and sixteen years of age. The history of this episode survives in folk memory as a disproportionate reaction to a perceived social crisis surrounding juvenile crime in 1970s Ireland. In order to assess the accuracy of this existing narrative, this article examines the episode through the lens of moral panic theory [MPT]. It argues that Loughan House, though not necessarily a punitive response in rhetoric or reality, nevertheless represented a failure of political imagination. This episode is particularly useful in highlighting the limitations of MPT, especially surrounding the concepts of disproportionality and punitiveness. Nevertheless, in spite of these limitations, the article contends that MPT remains valuable on both conceptual and affective levels.