Book review: 'Mysteries and solutions in irish legal history' edited by D.S. Greer and N.M. Dawson (Four courts press)

• Author: Ronan Keane
• Position: Chief Justice of Ireland
• Pages: 160-165

BOOK REVIEW: “MYSTERIES AND

SOLUTIONS IN IRISH LEGAL HISTORY”

EDITED BY D.S. GREER AND N.M. DAWSON

(FOUR COURTS PRESS)

THE HON. MR. JUSTICE RONAN KEANE*

The temptation for a reviewer of a collection such as

this is to follow the Dodo in Alice’s Adventures in

Wonderland and say “everybody has won, and all must have

prizes”. That would avoid any discomfiture to an essayist

whose contribution was not mentioned. But I can say without

any hesitation that, in the case of this collection, that

difficulty does not arise. This is not least because one of its

most attractive features is that the contributors have, in their

different ways, illuminated such sharply contrasting aspects

of our legal history. It is the latest of a series of such

collections published by the Irish Legal History Society of

papers which have been delivered since its inauguration in

1988.

If I start with the last essay, by Professor Nial

Osborough, from which the collection takes its title, it is

because, in addition to providing a useful checklist of work

that has been done in the field of Irish legal history, it also

points the way forward by identifying particular topics to

which legal historians might profitably direct their attention.

In particular, he would like scholars to address the question

as to how particular doctrines of the common law achieved a

secure anchorage in Irish law.

Professor Osborough himself has written

illuminatingly on the origins of the suspended sentence in

both the Irish jurisdictions: here he establishes that it can be

160 Judicial Studies Institute Journal [2:1

* Chief Justice of Ireland.