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Publications

Selected Publications

Publications by members of the UCD Legal History Group in the field of legal history in the period 2024-25.

Where Were the Women? (book chapter, 2024) (Mark Coen)

Women as Both Insiders and Outsiders in the History of the Legal Profession: 3 Sep 2024, Legal Scholarship Network(Niamh Howlin)

A Century of Courts: The Courts of Justice Act 1924 (edited book) (Niamh Howlin)

Confluences of Law and History Irish Legal History Society Discourses and Other Papers, 2011-21 (edited book, 2024) (Niamh Howlin)

‘On the Fly and on the Sly. The District Court in Action (book chapter) (Niamh Howlin)

Where Were the Women? 2024A Century of Courts: The Courts of Justice Act 1924 (book chapter) (Niamh Howlin)

Reflecting on A Century of Irish Courts (book chapter) (Niamh Howlin)

The exclusion of the Dáil courts and the Privy Council appeal from the creation of the courts of the Irish Free State, 1922–1924 (periodical article, Journal of Legal History, 2025) (Thomas Mohr)

Dismantling the Anglo-Irish Treaty: removing the oath and the repugnancy clause from the constitution of the Irish Free State (book chapter) (Thomas Mohr)

The Dáil courts and opposition to the Courts of Justice Act 1924 (book chapter, 2024) (Thomas Mohr)

Opposition to the Constitution of the Irish Free State in 1922 (book chapter, 2024) (Thomas Mohr)

The legacy of Airey v Ireland: family law distortion of civil legal aid (periodical article, Legal Studies, 2025) (Maebh Harding)

Imprisonment for Debt in Early Nineteenth Century Ireland (book chapter, 2025) (Kevin Costello)

The Circuit Court: Decentralization and its opponents, 1924 to 1934 (book chapter, 2024) Kevin Costello)

Quo Warranto and the Borough Officer Holder 1700-1792 (book chapter, 2025) 2025 (Kevin Costello)

A New Order in this County. Symbolism in the new courts (book chapter, 2024) (Mark Coen)

The Kerry Babies, criminology, and Reinhart Koselleck (periodical article, Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2025) (Ian O’Donnell with Ciara Mulloy)

2022

  • Thomas Mohr, Law and the Idea of Liberty in Ireland - From Magna Carta to the Present (Four Courts Press 2023)
  • Thomas Mohr ‘The Strange Fate of the Dail Decrees of Revolutionary Ireland’ (2022) Statute Law Review 1-18
  • ‘The Anglo Irish Treaty – Legal Interpretation, 1921-1925’ 66 (2021) Irish Jurist 1-4
  • M.Coen ‘Through a Narrow Window: Women's Jury Service in Ireland, 1921-1927' (2022) 9 Law & History 34-63
  • Niamh Howlin ‘Compensation for Malicious Injuries’ in O Breen & N McGgrath eds Palles: The Legal Legacy of the last Lord Chief Baron (Four Courts Press, 2022)
  • Niamh Howlin, ‘The Prehistory of the Offences Against the State Act’ in M. Coen ed The Offences Against the State Act 1939 at 80 A Model Counter-Terrorism Act? (Hart 2021)
  • M.Coen, ‘Safeguarding against 'evil results': the Lord Chief Baron and Contempt of Court’ in in O Breen & N McGgrath eds Palles: The Legal Legacy of the last Lord Chief Baron (Four Courts Press, 2022)
  • K.Costello, ‘Palles’ contribution to administrative law’ in O Breen & N McGgrath eds Palles: The Legal Legacy of the last Lord Chief Baron (Four Courts Press, 2022)
  • M.Coen, A Dublin Magdalene Laundry: Donnybrook and Church-State Power in Ireland (Bloomsbury 2023)

2021

  • Niamh Howlin (2021), ‘The Prehistory of the Offences against the State Act' in: Mark Coen (ed), The Offences Against the State Act 1939 at 80. 
  • Thomas Mohr (2021), ‘Emergency Law in the Irish Free State’ in: Mark Coen (ed), The Offences Against the State Act 1939 at 80. 
  • Kevin Costello (2021), ‘Mandamus and borough political life, 1600 to 1800’, Journal of Legal History.

2020

  • Kevin Costello (2020), ‘“Wrenched from its context”: The Interpretation of Associated Provincial Picture Houses v Wednesbury Corporation’, Law Quarterly Review.
  • Mark Coen (2020), ‘The Work of Some Irresponsible Women: Jurors, Ghosts, and Embracery in the Irish Free State’ Law and History Review.
  • Niamh Howlin (2020), ‘The Trials of Peter Barrett: A Microhistory of Dysfunction in the Irish Criminal Justice System’. Chapter.
  • Thomas Mohr (2020), ‘The Influence of Chief Justice Hugh Kennedy on Irish Legal Scholarship and Publishing’, Irish Jurist.
  • Thomas Mohr (2020), ‘The Strange Fate of the Dáil Decrees of Revolutionary Ireland, 1919–22’, Statute Law Review.

2019

  • Thomas Mohr (2019), ‘Law Journals and Irish History, 1922-1939’, Comparative Legal History.
  • Thomas Mohr (2019), ‘Irish Home Rule and Constitutional Reform in the British Empire’, Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique.
  • Thomas Mohr (2019), ‘Leo Kohn and the Law of the British Empire’, Irish Jurist.
  • Niamh Howlin (2019) ‘A Typical Collection of Lower Middle Class Londoners’.
  • Thomas Mohr (2019), ‘The Privy Council Appeal and British Imperial Policy, 1833–1939’. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

2018

  • Kevin Costello (2018) 'Drink and the Development of Administrative Law 1820-1910'. Public Law, 2018 (April).
  • Thomas Mohr (2018), ‘Law and the Foundation of the State on 6 December 1922’, Irish Jurist.
  • Mark Coen (2018), 'The Jury Speaks: Jury Riders in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’, American Journal of Legal History.
  • Niamh Howlin (2018), ‘The Jury Speaks. Jury Riders in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’. American Journal of Legal History.

2017

  • Kevin Costello (2017), 'Married Women's Property in Ireland 1800-1900' In: Niamh Howlin and Kevin Costello (eds). Law and the Family in Ireland 1800-1950. London: Palgrave, pp.66-86.
  • Niamh Howlin (2017), ‘Juries in Ireland: Laypersons and Law in the Long Nineteenth Century' Dublin: Four Courts Press.
  • Niamh Howlin & Kevin Costello (eds.), (2017) ‘Law and the Family in Ireland 1800-1950’. London: Palgrave Modern Legal History Series.
  • Niamh Howlin (2017), ‘Adultery in the Courts: Damages for Criminal Conversation in Ireland’ In: N Howlin and K Costello (eds). Law and the Family in Ireland 1800-1950. UK: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.44-64.
  • Niamh Howlin & Kevin Costello (2017), ‘Introduction’ In: N Howlin and K Costello (eds). Law and the Family in Ireland 1800-1950. UK: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.1-6.
  • Thomas Mohr (2017), ‘Embedding the Family in the Irish Constitution’ In: N. Howlin and K. Costello (eds). Law and the Irish Family. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.214-237.
  • Thomas Mohr (2017), ‘The Impact of Canadian Confederation in Ireland’ In: M. Martel, J. Krikorian and A. Shubert (eds). Globalizing Confederation - Canada and the World in 1867. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp.178-193.
  • Ian O'Donnell (2017), ‘Justice, Mercy, and Caprice: Clemency and the Death Penalty in Ireland’. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2016

  • Thomas Mohr (2016), ‘Guardian of the Treaty - The Privy Council Appeal and Irish Sovereignty’. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
  • Thomas Mohr (2016), ‘Legal Material and Historical Research’ In: Laura Cahillane and Jennifer Schweppe (eds). ‘Legal Research Methods: Principles and Practicalities’. Dublin: Clarus Press, pp.71-87.
  • Thomas Mohr (2016), ‘The United Kingdom and Imperial federation, 1900 to 1939: a precedent for British legal relations with the European Union?’ Comparative Legal History, 4 (2):1-31.
  • Thomas Mohr (2016), ‘The Irish question and the evolution of British Imperial Law, 1916-1922’. The Dublin University Law Journal, 39 (2):405-427.
  • Kevin Costello (2016), ‘The Irish Shopkeeper and the Law of Bankruptcy 1860-1930’. The Irish Jurist, 56.
  • Kevin Costello (2016) ,‘The Habeas Corpus Act 1816 at Two Hundred’. Public Law, pp. 183-189.
  • Charles Ivar McGrath (2016), ‘Banks, Paper Currency and the Fiscal State: The Case of Ireland, Stated, 1660-1783’ In: Aaron Graham and Patrick Walsh (eds). The British Fiscal-Military States, 1660- c.1783. Abingdon & New York: Routledge, pp.35-60.
  • Charles Ivar McGrath (2016), ‘The Grand Question Debated: Jonathan Swift, Army Barracks, Parliament and Money’. Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 31: 117-136.

2015

  • Kevin Costello (2015), ‘Labour Law in Ireland’. The Netherlands: Wolters Kluwer.
  • Kevin Costello (2015), ‘The Scope of Application of the rule against fettering in administrative law’. Law Quarterly Review.
  • Niamh Howlin (2015), ‘The Politics of Jury Trials in Ireland’. Comparative Legal History, 3 (2), pp. 272-292.
  • Thomas Mohr (2015), ‘The Political Significance of the Coinage of the Irish Free State’. Irish Studies Review, 23 (4):1-29.
  • Charles Ivar McGrath, Walsh, P. A. & Forbes, S. (2015) Mapping State and Society in Eighteenth-Century Ireland. Electronic Publication.

2014

  • Niamh Howlin (2014), ‘Irish Jurors: Passive Observers or Active Participants?’ Journal of Legal History, 35 (2).
  • Thomas Mohr (2014), ‘Preserving Legal Memory 62’, The Parchment Magazine. Dublin: Articles (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Kevin Costello (2014), ‘More equitable than the judgment of the justices of the peace. The King's Bench, judicial review and the poor law, 1630-1790’. Journal of Legal History, 35 (1):1-26.
  • Ian O'Donnell and David Doyle (2014), ‘A Family Affair? English Hangmen and a Dublin jail, 1923-54’. New Hibernia Review, 18 (4):101-118. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.

2013

2012

  • David M. Doyle and Ian O'Donnell (2012), ‘The Death Penalty in Post-Independence Ireland’. Journal of Legal History, 33 (1):65-91. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Charles Ivar McGrath (2012), ‘Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century Governance and the Viceroyalty’ In: Gray, Peter, and Purdue, Olwen (eds). The Irish Lord Lieutenancy, c. 1541-1922. Dublin: UCD Press, pp.43-65.
  • Kevin Costello (2012), ‘The writ of certiorari and review of summary criminal convictions, 1660-1848’. Law Quarterly Review, 128 :443-465. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Eoin O'Sullivan & Ian O'Donnell (2012), ‘Coercive Confinement in Ireland: Patients, Prisoners and Penitents’. UK: MUP. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Thomas Mohr (2012), ‘The Privy Council appeal as a minority safeguard for the Protestant community of the Irish Free State, 1922-1935’. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 63 (3):365-395. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.

2011

  • Thomas Mohr (2011), ‘A British Empire Court - An Appraisal of the History of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council’ In: Anthony McElligott et al (eds). Power in History - Historical Studies XXVII. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, pp.125-145 (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Kevin Costello (2011), The Court of Admiralty of Ireland 1575 to 1893. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
  • Niamh Howlin (2011), ‘The Terror of Their Lives: Irish Jurors Experiences’. Law and History Review, 29 (3):703-761. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Thomas Mohr (2011), 'British Imperial Statutes and Irish Sovereignty: Statutes Passed After the Creation of the Irish Free State' Journal of Legal History, 32 (1):61-85. (opens in a new window)[DOI] (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Kevin Costello (2011), ‘A Court for the Determination of causes civil and maritime only' Article Eight of the Act of Union and the Court of Admiralty of Ireland' In: Brown and Donlan (eds). The Law and other Legalities of Ireland 1689-1850. England: Ashgate, pp. 359-378.
  • Niamh Howlin (2011), 'English and Irish Jury Laws: the Growing Divergence 1825-1833' In: Brown and Donlan (eds). The Laws and Other Legalities of Ireland, 1689-1850. England: Ashgate.

2010

  • Thomas Mohr (2010), ‘British Imperial Statutes and Irish Law: Statutes Passed Before the Creation of the Irish Free State’ Journal of Legal History, 31 (3):299-321. (opens in a new window)[DOI] (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Ian O'Donnell (2010), ‘Killing in Ireland at the turn of the centuries: contexts, consequences and civilizing processes’. Irish Economic and Social History, 37 :53-74. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Niamh Howlin (2010), ‘Fenians, Foreigners and Jury Trials in Ireland 1865-69’. Irish Jurist 45:51-81. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Coleman A. Dennehy (2010), ‘Surviving sources for Irish parliamentary history in the seventeenth century’. Parliaments, Estates and Representation.
  • Kevin Costello (2010), ‘The Court of Admiralty of Ireland, 1745-1756’. American Journal of Legal History, 50 :23-49.

2009

  • Charles Ivar McGrath (2009), ‘The Parliament of Ireland to 1800’ In: Jones, Clyve (eds). A Short History of Parliament: England, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scotland. Woodbridge: Boydell, pp. 320-337.
  • Thomas Mohr (2009), ‘The Colonial Laws Validity Act and the Irish Free State’. Irish Jurist, 43: 21-44. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Niamh Howlin (2009), ‘Controlling Jury Composition in Nineteenth-Century Ireland’. Journal of Legal History, 29 (3):227-261. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.

2008

  • Thomas Mohr (2008), ‘British Involvement in the Creation of the Constitution of the Irish Free State’. Dublin University Law Journal, 30 :166-186. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Ian O'Donnell (2008), ‘The Fall and Rise of Homicide in Ireland’ In: Sophie Body-Gendrot, Pieter Spierenburg (eds). Violence in Europe Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. UK: Springer, pp.79-92.
  • Thomas Mohr (2008), ‘The Rights of Women under the Constitution of the Irish Free State’. Irish Jurist, 41:20-59. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.
  • Niamh Howlin (2008), ‘Merchants and Esquires: Special Juries in Dublin 1725-1833’ In: O’Kane and Sullivan (eds). Georgian Dublin. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
  • Kevin Costello (2008), ‘Habeas Corpus and Military and Naval Impressment, 1756-1816’. Journal of Legal History, 29 :215-251.(opens in a new window)[DOI] (opens in a new window)Link to full text.

2007

  • Eoin O'Sullivan and Ian O'Donnell (2007), ‘Coercive confinement in the Republic of Ireland: The waning of a culture of control Punishment and Society’. Punishment and Society, 9 (1):27-48. (opens in a new window)[DOI]
  • Thomas Mohr (2007), ‘Law in a Gaelic Utopia: Perceptions of Brehon Law in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Ireland’, in: O. Brupbacher et al (eds). Remembering and Forgetting: Yearbook of Young Legal History. Munich: Martin Meidenbauer, pp.247-276.

2006

  • Kevin Costello (2006), ‘The Law of Habeas Corpus in Ireland Dublin’, Four Courts Press.
  • Charles Ivar McGrath (2006), ‘Government, parliament and the constitution: the reinterpretation of Poynings' Law, 1692-1714’ Irish Historical Studies, xxxv :160-172.
  • Kevin Costello (2006), ‘R. (Martin) v. Mahony; The history of a classical certiorari authority’. Journal of Legal History, 27:267-287. (opens in a new window)Link to full text.

2005

  • Ian O'Donnell (2005), ‘Lethal violence in Ireland, 1841 to 2003: Famine, celibacy and parental pacification’. British Journal of Criminology, 45 (5):671-695. (opens in a new window)[DOI]
  • Charles Ivar McGrath (2005), ‘The provisions for conversion in the penal laws, 1695-1750’ In: McGrath, C. I., Brown, M. & Power, T. P (eds). Converts and Conversion in Ireland, 1650-1850. Dublin: Four Courts Press, pp.35-59.
  • Charles Ivar McGrath, Brown, M., and Power, T. P (eds.) (2005), ‘Converts and Conversion in Ireland, 1650-1850’. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

2002

  • Ian ODonnell (2002), ‘Unlawful killing past and present’. Irish Jurist, 37 :56-90.

2001

  • Charles Ivar McGrath (2001), ‘Central Aspects of the Eighteenth-Century Constitutional Framework in Ireland: The Government Supply Bill and Biennial Parliamentary Sessions, 1715-82’. Eighteenth Century Ireland, 16 :9-34.

2000

  • Charles Ivar McGrath (2000), ‘The Making of the Eighteenth-Century Irish Constitution: Government, Parliament and the Revenue, 1692-1714’. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

1996

  • Charles Ivar McGrath (1996), ‘Securing the Protestant Interest: The Origins and Purpose of the Penal Laws of 1695’. Irish Historical Studies, xxx :25-46.

UCD Sutherland School of Law

University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.