UCD Legal History Group Book Published

The first research project undertaken by UCD’s Legal History Group was a study of the interaction between the law and the family in Ireland in the period 1800-1950. The project began as a roundtable conference on the legal history of the family in Ireland, held in the Sutherland School of Law in March 2015. The papers delivered at that conference have been collected in a book entitled Law and the Family in Ireland 1800-1950 edited by Dr Niamh Howlin and Dr Kevin Costello. The book, which appeared in June 2017, is the first volume in the Palgrave Modern Legal History series. The twelve papers which make up the book cover the principal stages of family life in Ireland 1800-1950: from engagement to divorce, and touching on issues like the legal history of adoption, the legal definition of infanticide in nineteenth century Ireland, married women’s property, inter-family homicide trials in Ireland, the action for breach of promise of marriage, and the place of the family in the Irish Constitution.