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punishment where a threat of activation of the sentence is the essential punitive element
which endures alongside the stigma of receivinga custodial sentence, albeit suspended?
Throughout the chapter, the reader is alerted to the suggestion that the suspended sentence
as operated in Ireland on a common law basis may seek to answer the demands of
sentencing requirements, some of which are quite contradictory or at least conflicting. A
true understanding of the suspended sentence in Ireland, it is argued, can only be gleaned
from the theoretical exposition containedin this chapter combinedwith an overviewof the
actual use of the sanction by the criminal courts in Ireland which will be discussed in
Chapter 6 which deals with the operationalisation of the sanction.
THE SUSPENDED SENTENCE : AN IRISH INNOVATION?
A Judicially Developed Sanction
The general characteristics of the suspended sentence have been outlined in the
introduction to this chapter where a sentence of imprisonment is given or recorded and is
thereupon immediately suspended on condition that the offender undertakes to keep the
peace for a specified period and will come up for sentencing if called upon to do so if s/he
is in breach of such undertaking. Usually the undertaking given by the offender is
formalised by the offender entering into a bond to keep the peace secured by a principal
surety of the offender him/herself but may also be subject to secondary independent
sureties. In this section the evolution of the suspended sentence in Ireland will be
examined, as this appears to be the first criminal jurisdiction in which the use of the
suspended sentence can be identified.
The modern root of title to the suspended sentence in Irish lawcan be found in the case
People (D.P.P.) –v - McIllhagga (Supreme Court, 29 th July 1971(unreported) where
O’Dalaigh C.J. proclaimed that the suspended sentence had long been recognised as “a
valid and proper form of sentence” (Osborough 1982:222). In R.-v- Wightman [1950]
N.I. 124 in a judgment of Lord Chief Justice Andrews, he proclaimed the inherent power
of the criminal courts in Northern Ireland to recorda sentence against a convictedprisoner
and to bind him over on recognisance to attend for judgement on notice. In asserting
such inherent power in the criminal court in Northern Ireland in 1950 the Lord Chief
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