Dr. Paul O'Connell
Clinical Senior Lecturer (Psychiatry)
CENTRAL MENTAL HOSPITAL
Clinical Senior Lecturer (Psychiatry)
Paul O'Connell is a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist with the National Forensic Psychiatry Service at the Central Mental Hospital, Dublin, and Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin. He qualified in medicine in 1989 from University College Galway and trained in psychiatry in Galway before completing higher specialist training in general adult and forensic psychiatry through the Maudsley rotations, the Institute of Psychiatry, and at Broadmoor Hospital, before serving as Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist and later Clinical Director at the Trevor Gibbens Unit, Kent (2000-2004). Since returning to Ireland in 2004 he has practised across the full spectrum of forensic psychiatric care, including acute admissions, progression through levels of security, rehabilitation and recovery services, and care of patients with intellectual disability and developmental disorders, alongside sessional prison psychiatry and expert testimony in criminal, regulatory, child-protection and civil proceedings.
His research has focused on the neurobiological and cognitive correlates of psychosis and violence, contributing to collaborative studies on structural and functional brain imaging in schizophrenia, anticholinergic burden and psychosocial treatment outcomes, cognitive remediation trials, and models linking moral cognition, delusional belief and offending in forensic populations. He maintains a broader academic interest in philosophy of mind and consciousness, the history of psychiatry and forensic practice, and the interface between psychiatric evidence, ethics and law.
| Details |
Date From |
Date To |
| Medico Legal Society of Ireland |
2018 |
2026 |
| Law Committee of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland |
2022 |
2026 |
