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Beginnings, influences, and evolution -- Constitutional foundations -- Government and oireachtas -- The President -- Legislative power and interpretation -- Governance and public administration -- Political constraints on the government -- Courts and the legal constraint of government -- Fundamental right and judicial power -- Constitutional change.

Northern Ireland challenges a Westphalian account of the world in which sovereign states inhabit discrete geographic spaces. Its constitutional future is not determined by the central UK Government, its external border is porous for people and open for goods, some parts of EU law continue to apply. The paper shifts the focus from unitary and coherent sovereign spaces to multiple, varied and overlapping jural spaces, shedding light on some of the challenges that would be faced in the context of Irish unification. Even in a politically unified Irish state, managing the jural border between Ireland and Northern Ireland would remain a key task. The paper outlines a new account of law's relationship to geographical space, before analysing the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The paper concludes by addressing some structural issues that would need to be addressed if Irish unification were to occur.

PUBLISHED ; In 2015, Ireland became the first country in the world to introduce same-sex marriage by popular referendum. In just 22 years, the country had gone from criminalising sexual activity between men to endorsing same-sex marriage. This result was warmly welcomed by gay rights activists around the world, but some raised concerns over the appropriateness of a referendum as a mechanism for protecting minority rights. One commentator referred to itas an ?indignity,? noting that it was unseemly to put the civil rights of a historically oppressed minority to a popular vote. A proper appraisal of the Irish referendum, however, requires an appreciation its legal and social context. The referendum was held because relevant political actors believed that same-sex marriage required a constitutional amendment, which can only be accomplished by a referendum. The Irish referendum, therefore, cannot be understood as narrowly populist or majoritarian but instead should be seen as part of a consensus-building process required for constitutional amendment. While putting minority votes to a referendum came with costs?most significantly, the public dissection of the private lives of those who stood to benefit from the reform?the required consensus-building also had positive implications for members of the gay community. In short, it produced a much greater level of social acceptance than would likely have been achieved through either judicial or legislative recognition of a right to same-sex marriage. These benefits would likely not have arisen, however, if a referendum had been a choice on the part of political actors rather than a legal necessity. It is therefore unlikely that the Irish experience, whatever its merits, can be straightforwardly translated to other jurisdictions. Nevertheless, the Irish referendum campaign yields some lessons for other activist campaigns for same-sex marriage.In particular, I suggest that the storytelling of gay people?and the responses of their fellow citizens?may have been more significant than the articulation of more public values, such as equality.I begin with a brief account of how gay rights developed in Ireland prior to the movement for marriage equality. I then consider the legal arguments that bore on the questions of whether the Constitution either protected a right of same-sex couples to marry or precluded parliament from legislatively introducing same-sex marriage. I then explore the political moves that led to the 2015 referendum before assessing the key features of the referendum campaign, in both its public and private dimensions. I conclude by reviewing the appropriateness of putting minority right to a referendum, before identifying some lessons for political campaigners that arise from the Irish referendum campaign.

Abstract:The judicial use of foreign law in constitutional cases is often unsatisfactorily explained in terms of persuasive authority, judicial learning or judicial dialogue. In this article, I argue that the central case of the judicial use of foreign law involves judges treating foreign case law as theoretically, rather than practically, authoritative. The justification for this approach lies in how case law emerges from a process that is structured in such a way that its outcomes deserve respect. There is, in contrast, no justification for any attempt on the part of judges to treat constitutional cases as an opportunity for interjurisdictional judicial dialogue.

The ideal of equality has become increasingly prominent in Irish political discourse. Article 40.1 of the Constitution of Ireland, 1937 guarantees the equality of all citizens, as human persons, before the law, but has for many years remained undeveloped by the courts. This thesis attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of the case law interpreting Article 40.1 and to place that case law in its theoretical context. The major conclusions of this thesis are that the drafters of Article 40.1 understood it is a guarantee of civil and political equality, but not social equality. In interpreting the Constitution, however, the courts have adopted a weak process conception of equality which applies in civil, political and social spheres of life. This weak process conception is based on the first half of Aristotle?s injunction to treat like cases alike and unlike cases unalike. As a matter of constitutional law, this requires the courts to test whether legislative classifications correspond to real differences in society. Dicta in a number of recent cases suggest that the courts may be strengthening this process conception by requiring a higher level of justification for some grounds of classification, such as race, than for others. ; TARA (Trinity?s Access to Research Archive) has a robust takedown policy. Please contact us if you have any concerns: rssadmin@tcd.ie