In this episode, Anne Byrne of the Department of Sociology and Politics in National University of Ireland, Galway, discusses 'the gift of sociology'. 

We asked Anne, as a long-standing friend of the Sociological Association of Ireland, to give a talk based on her approach to sociological research, discussing the methods that she uses, but also the spirit in which she suggests we can approach our research. Anne, works very much in the spirit of C. Wright Mill, who defined the task of sociology as linking history and biography, of taking disconnected lives, and even fragments of lives which lie dispersed in objects, and to tell their stories through how they are linked with a wider context of history and their place in society, which can recover their meaning and give sense to them, and give society in general a sense of itself, where it is going, and how individual lives and destinies are shaped.

For related readings, visit the Members Section of Sociology.ie.

Intro and concluding music is 'Algorithms' by Chad Crouch, taken from the Free Music Archive