Liam Coen

“Doing the Job as a Parent”: Parenting Alone, Work, and Family Policy in Ireland

Recent studies of family life in Ireland have focused on changes in “traditional” family structures, including the increase in one-parent families. This article illustrates the impact dominant conceptions in Irish society that privilege the family based on marriage have on one-parent family policy. The authors focus on two key areas of social interaction associated with family life—parenthood and (un)paid work—to identify both congruences and tensions between social policy and the needs of one-parent families. The article draws on interview and survey data collected in Galway in 2007 to show how existing welfare policies create some opportunities for those parenting alone while at the same time perpetuating inequalities within the gendered family context and across multiple generations.

‘Individual and connected’: an exploration of young people’s discourses about youth cafes in Ireland

ABSTRACT Since 2000, youth cafes are accorded prominence in Irish youth policies and research. Youth cafes are drug and alcohol free recreational spaces and research shows that they impact positively on young people. Youth cafes are broadly similar to youth clubs, but they are less structured and are primarily youth-led spaces. This paper draws on qualitative materials from a national study of youth cafes in Ireland, arguing that young people’s perceptions of youth cafes are linked to individuality and connectedness. In this paper, we explore these discourses surrounding individuality and connection in detail and argue that youth work in the twenty-first century must simultaneously appeal to young people’s need for space to ‘be’ and to find themselves and provide a structure within which they can relate to others and wider society.