Announcement of the ILHS Student Essay Prize Winners – 2024
In 2021, the Irish Legal History Society announced its inaugural student essay competition. This initiative celebrates the rich legal history scholarship being carried out by students in Ireland and around the world.
The Society invited all students, undergraduate and postgraduate, to submit essays on the topic of Irish legal history.
In the third year of the competition, we again received a fantastic response from students! In light of the quality of the submissions, and in addition to a postgraduate and an undergraduate winner, the judging committee decided to also note a special commendation.
The prizes will be awarded at an upcoming ILHS event where we look forward to officially congratulating the winners!
ILHS Essay Prize Undergraduate Winner 2024
Noah Williams, ‘Nationalism, Homophobia, and a Victorian Dublin Subculture’
ILHS Essay Prize Postgraduate Winner 2024
Kerri Armstrong, ‘Drunk, Deviant and Disgraced: Women and Crime in Late Nineteenth Century Belfast’
Special Commendation
Caoimhín Jiao, ‘Burial Rite & Right Dispute, A Grave Concern in 19th century Ireland’
Q&A with the Winners
We asked Noah, Kerri and Caoimhín to tell us a bit about themselves and talk about their winning essays.
Noah Williams, ‘Nationalism, Homophobia, and a Victorian Dublin Subculture’
What is your essay about?
My essay discusses the United Ireland scandal. In this scandal, the United Ireland newspaper published stories exposing an underground homosexual ring amongst those who they purported to be representatives of British rule in Ireland. They did this in an effort to undermine British moral authority in Ireland and put forward the idea that Irish purity could only be maintained through Irish rule. The essay details the civil and criminal trials which resulted from the original publication of the articles and their legal issues. Further, it looks at the United Ireland scandal as a case study on the weaponisation of homophobia and the law in furtherance of the nationalist cause. It highlights the homosexual Victorian Dublin subculture which was uncovered as a result of the scandal, which I posit illustrates a different side to Dublin during that time, showing that a seemingly close-knit community and rich subculture existed. However, it also argues that this community cannot be seen in a wholly positive light. Although all those exposed by the articles were undoubtedly victims of homophobia, some members of the community took advantage of the forced underground nature of the community and their victims inability to access judicial recourse, sexually abusing other members of the community. In this regard, the essay argues, Victorian Dublin upholds its reputation as dour and miserable for many. An expanded version of this essay was published in the 24th volume of the UCD Law Review, which was officially launched on the 28th of November 2024.
How did you come to write the essay?
The essay started off as a research assignment in the History of Public Law module taught by Dr Kevin Costello and Dr Thomas Mohr in UCD, which I maintain has been the most enjoyable module that I have done in my academic career. I had never originally heard of the scandal, and when we were given a list of topics to choose from, I looked into the scandal and it caught my attention straight away as an inherently interesting part of Irish history that I wanted to learn more about, and I was also surprised that I had never heard of it before.
What are you doing you now?
I am currently in my fourth and final year in UCD studying Law. I plan in the future to do the Barrister-at-law degree in the Kings-Inns and practise at the bar. However, more immediately, I am looking at either doing a masters next year, or preferably working as a judicial assistant before I sit the Kings-Inns entrance exams.
Kerri Armstrong, ‘Drunk, Deviant and Disgraced: Women and Crime in Late Nineteenth Century Belfast’
Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your research?
I am a second year PhD student at the University of Northumbria examining the lives of female offenders in the North Eastern region of England to explore the nature of the relationship between crime and the wider female lifecycle. Belfast’s history has often focused heavily on religion and politics, meaning that the history of female crime and what it can reveal about wider society has been vastly underexplored. Determined to examine women’s stories and experiences and reinstate their place in history, my interests focus on the complicated relationship between crime and the female experience before and outside of prison. I wrote this essay to explore this relationship and in doing so, exposed the female agency that existed in their survival strategies.
What was your essay about?
This essay conducts an examination of the relationship between women and their convicted crimes through the analysis of a data sample of 600 women recorded in the Belfast Prison Registers 1886 – 1891, providing an overview of crime patterns and determining the socio-economic status of the sample through the use of diet metrics to consider how a post- Famine and industrialised Belfast contributed to the commitment of female crime. The prison registers provide a wealth of information on each individual prisoner which provides an insight into Belfast’s female population and the harsh realities of an urban economy.
Caoimhín Jiao, ‘Burial Rite & Right Dispute, A Grave Concern in 19th century Ireland’
Tell us about your essay?
Although the more severe forms of penal law had ceased to be effective by the early 1800s, religious animosity was still prevalent in certain sectors of the society. For example, In September 1823, a Protestant sexton insisted that the catholic funeral rite not be performed in a graveyard adjacent to a protestant church, referencing an Act of Parliament.
The burial dispute escalated in subsequent months and reached a point of political crisis before the authorities decided that legislative intervention was now required. Perhaps disappointingly, inherent conflicts and ambiguities that existed on the statute books gave rise to difficulties as parliamentarians struggled to reach an agreement.
The focus of my analysis is the legal and political background of the Easement of Burial Act 1824 enacted in response to the burial rite&right crisis. A decision hailed as a “Charter of toleration for Catholics” by the Attorney General William Plunkett yet criticised by O Connell as resting on limited understanding and bigotry instead of on an informed insight.
I also examine public perception of the law as well as legal development post-Catholic Emancipation.
Why did you write the essay?
As the decade of centenary is coming to a close, the demi-decade of bi-centenaries (proposed by Prof. Patrick Geoghegan earlier this year at his Daniel O’ Connell commemorative lecture in Glasnevin Cemetery) provides a renewed opportunity to reflect on key historical figures and developments.
After my arrival in Ireland I became an admirer of O’ Connell for the way he defended the helpless both in the legal and in the political arena. His campaign, which led to the first non-denominational cemetery in Ireland since the Reformation underscores his commitment to moral campaigning for the freedom of conscience, an aspect of O Connell’s legacy I am keen to explore. Researching for this essay in anticipation of the demi-decade of bicentenaries helped me to understand the legal background/environment of those key developments.
Yet another source of inspiration was a module on Irish Legal History in my Alma Mater UCD which I found thoroughly enjoyable. The module was delivered by Prof. Thomas Mohr and Prof. Kevin Costello and I am very grateful for their encouragement and support.
Where are you now?
In September this year I graduated from UCD with a degree of Masters in Common Law (MCL). Since then I have been working for Excel Industries Ltd. a company involved in the distribution of heating and plumbing products. In the meanwhile I am preparing for the King’s Inns Entrance exam in the hope of practicing as a barrister in the future. My hobbies include farming, sea kayaking, playing tin whistle at trad-sessions, and taking walks in Glasnevin Cemetery where I meet interesting people both dead and alive.
