We are delighted that one of our former presidents, Professor Norma Dawson, was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to legal education and the development of the legal profession in Northern Ireland.

Professor Dawson is a distinguished legal historian and holder of a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship. She was President of the Irish Legal History Society from 2009-2012. She is also a former Head of the Law School at Queen’s University Belfast. Last year she was made an Honorary Bencher of the Inn of Court of Northern Ireland.

Her research interests are intellectual property law, especially the law of trade marks, cultural property law, and legal history. She has taught in areas including Equity and Trusts, Trade Mark Law, Land Law, Charity Law, Landlord and Tenant Law, Irish Legal History, Planning Law and Introduction to Property Law. She has published widely in these areas, and her list of publications can be viewed here.

‘We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right’

 – Clause 40 of Magna Carta

In November 1216, The Great Charter of Ireland (Magna Carta Hibernae) was issued and arrived in Ireland in February 1217.  800 years later it is still noted as an international symbol of freedom and rights paving the way for the democratic systems which exist in in the world today.

Commissioned by Salisbury Cathedral in 2015, British and American composer, Tarik O’Regan has collaborated with poet and librettist Alice Goodman to create a commemorative piece for Magna Carta – ‘A Letter of Rights‘ for chamber choir and orchestra.

Marking the 800^th anniversary of the arrival of Magna Carta in Ireland, Chamber Choir Ireland and the Irish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Paul Hillier will perform this large-scale work in Belfast, Limerick and finally in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, where a 14^th century copy of Magna Carta is currently exhibited.   Partnering A Letter of Rights in the programme is Handel’s brilliantly virtuosic Dixit Dominus.

Chamber Choir Ireland and Irish Chamber Orchestra are recognised as leaders in their artforms both on the island of Ireland and internationally and are delighted to once again partner for this unique programme of the new and the old. The tour has been made possible through a Touring and Dissemination of Work award from the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Performances:

Thursday 23^rd February, St. Thomas’ Parish Church, Belfast 7.30pm, £15/5  Tickets viawww.belfastmusicsociety.org

Saturday 25^th February, St Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick 8.00pm, €25/22 Tickets viawww.irishchamberorchestra.com/events/a-letter-of-rights

Sunday 26^th February, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin 7.30pm, €25/22 Tickets viawww.irishchamberorchestra.com/events/a-letter-of-rights

The Judicial Studies Board of Northern Ireland was pleased to welcome Professor Sir John Baker to deliver a lecture entitled ‘1616: The Dismissal of Lord Chief Justice Coke’ on 20 October. The subject of Sir John’s talk was particularly relevant to the perennially important themes of the independence of the judiciary and the maintenance of the rule of law.

Biographical Details: 

Professor Sir John H Baker Q.C., LL.B., Ph.D. (Lond.), M.A., LL.D. (Cantab.), Hon. LL.D. (Chicago), F.B.A.; Downing Professor Emeritus of the Laws of England Sir John was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford, and University College London (LLB, PhD). He was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1966 and was elected an Honorary Bencher in 1988.

His first academic post was as an Assistant Lecturer in Law at University College London, in 1965. In 1967 he was promoted to Lecturer, and in 1971 moved to the University of Cambridge. There he was Librarian of the Squire Law Library until 1973, and became a Fellow of St Catharine’s College. His rooms were above the Sherlock Library until his retirement. In 1973 he became a Lecturer in Law at University of Cambridge. He was appointed Reader in English Legal History at the University of Cambridge in 1983. In 1988 he was appointed Professor of English Legal History.

From 1998 until 2011 he was Downing Professor of the Laws of England. He was President of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge until 2007 when he was succeeded by Professor Sir Christopher Alan Bayly. He was also Literary Director of the Selden Society until 2011 (jointly with David Yale 1981-91, sole 1991-2011) when he was succeeded by Dr Neil Jones.

Appointments have included Visiting Professor, New York University School of Law since 1988, Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford in 1995, Honorary Fellow, Society for Advanced Legal Studies 1998, Corresponding Fellow American Society for Legal History 1992, and Foreign Honorary Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2001. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (1984) and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (1980). He was appointed a Fellow of University College London in 1991, awarded an Honorary LLD of the University of Chicago in 1991, and received the Yorke Prize (University of Cambridge) 1975, and the Ames Prize (Harvard Law School) in 1985. He was knighted in 2003. In 2004, he was awarded the Irish Legal History Society’s Gold Medal

Law and The Idea of Liberty in Ireland: From Magna Carta to the Present

What is the place of Ireland in the story of Magna Carta’s global dissemination? Four centuries before the Great Charter crossed the Atlantic, it was already implanted across the Irish Sea. A two-day conference in the Music Room of Christ Church Cathedral will explore the legal-historical background to Magna Carta in Ireland, the reception of the charter into English law in Ireland, the political and polemical uses to which the charter was put, and its twentieth and twentieth-first century invocations as a living presence in contemporary Irish law.

The conference takes place on 25 and 26 November and places can be booked via Eventbrite.

View and download the programme:

Further details are available here.

The Society gratefully acknowledges the support so generously given by the sponsors of this conference and without which it could not have taken place.

• Christ Church Cathedral Library and Archives Committee
• The Grace Lawless Lee Fund, Trinity College Dublin
• The Medieval History Research Centre, Trinity College Dublin
• The Humanities Institute, University College Dublin.
• Sir Anthony Hart
• The Law Society of Ireland

The Society would also like to thank its publishers Four Courts Press for sponsoring the coffee break on Friday and the publishers whose leaflets are enclosed in the conference pack.

As part of the ongoing 1916 commemorations, three members of the Council of the Irish Legal History Society have contributed to the latest edition Irish Independent’s Special 1916 Supplement Series.

These supplements are aimed at a broad readership and will be made available in all secondary schools.

Dr Niamh Howlin: “The Trial of Roger Casement: A Legal Travesty?”

Mr. Felix M. Larkin: “Out of Step: Dublin Newspapers’ Response to the Rising”

Mr. Robert Marshall: “Charles Blackader: Old Black’s Military Court Fired Volleys”