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Congratulations to the brilliant and inspirational, Mary Harney, "resister in chief", renowned human rights activist and student, who successfully defended her PhD in Human Rights on October 10^th, at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law.

Mary's doctoral thesis was on the topic: "Towards Best Practices in the Pedagogy of Human Rights Clinics: Movement Lawyering, its Emotional Impacts on Students and the Question of Teaching Resilience".

A beautifully written doctoral thesis, Mary's work draws on the practice of movement lawyering to analyse the pedagogy of our award winning Human Rights Law clinic, and the impact of human rights clinical legal education and field work on human rights practitioners (including students). Congratulations to Mary's supervisors,  Dr Maeve O'Rourke, and Professor Anna Arstein Kerslake @ University of Melbourne  Thank you to the examiners, Prof Bill Quigley, Professor Emeritus Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and Dr Shivaun Quinlivan University of Galway School of Law.

It is hard to put into words how much Mary has contributed to the Irish Centre for Human Rights – through her teaching, reflections on human rights pedagogy, and engagement with community activists and human rights defenders globally, pushing us to more transformative practice. Lots of cups of tea and biscuits, supporting and working with our wonderful LLM human rights students from across the globe. And a bright shining star of our PhD research community.

Mary holds a BA in Human Ecology and an Honorary Master’s Degree in Philosophy from the College of the Atlantic in Maine, USA. She also has two postgraduate degrees from University of Galway: an MA in Irish Studies and an LLM in International Human Rights.

At the tender age of 72, Mary embarked upon her 4 year structured PhD in Human Rights, now completed!

Mary's inspirational life story is featured in the award winning documentary "Testimony’ (2025), which follows the lives of various Irish citizens who were incarcerated in Ireland’s notorious institutions for unmarried women and their children. Testimony was the recipient of the 2025 ICCL Human Rights Film Award. You can read more about Mary’s herstory at:

Mary Harney / Academic and Activist —