Migrations of Manuscripts 2009

The history of capital punishment in post-Independence Ireland has received scant scholarly attention. This essay is an attempt to set out what can be learned about the executed persons, the executioners, and the politicians whose inaction (not reforming the law) and actions (deciding against clemency) brought the two former groups together. The death penalty was deployed strategically against IRA members during the early 1940s as part of a package of legal measures designed to crush subversive activity, but more usually its targets were murderers whose acts had no wider ramifications. One notable aspect of the Irish arrangements was that when a prisoner was to be taken to the gallows an English hangman was always contracted to arrange the ‘drop’. Reflecting popular antipathy towards the practice the Irish state was unable to find a willing executioner within its borders.     

Migrations of manuscripts

This article considers the motivations behind the introduction of the statutory requirement for local authority landlords, in making a decision to allocate housing, to give certain groups of people a ‘reasonable preference’. The discussion is set in the context of an examination of theories of local government covering the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In particular, it examines whether central government's decision to restrict local authorities' previous freedom in this sphere was based on any principle or theory of local government or, rather, whether it was a pragmatic decision. An analysis of the Parliamentary debates leading to the relevant Housing Acts suggests that the central–local government relationship of this period was based on pragmatism. The over-arching question of the appropriate distribution of power and functions between the centre and the localities was relatively unimportant, compared with the very real question of how sufficient houses could be built, at rents that working class people could afford.     

Migrations of manuscripts index 1978–91

Sussex Coroners’ Inquests 1558–1603. R.F. Hunnisett. London. 1996. Public Record Office Publications, xlviii + 216 pp. (incl. Indexes). £20 hb. ISBN 1–873162–28–6.

Absolute Monarchy and the Stuart Constitution. Glenn Burgess. New Haven and London. 1996. Yale University Press, x + 229 pp. (incl. Index). £25. Hardback. ISBN 0–3–06532–9

Women Before the Bar: Gender, Law &; Society in Connecticut, 1639–1789. Cornelia Hughes Dayton. Chapel Hill. 1995. University of North Carolina Press, xv + 382 pp. (incl. Index). $49.95 hb; $18.95 pb. ISBN 0–8078–2244–2; 0–8078–4561–2.

Ratio legis Falcidiae. Die Falzidische Rechnung bei Zusammentreffen mehrerer Erbschaften in einer Hand. Dietmar Schanbacher. (Freiburger Rechtsgeschichtliche Abhandlungen, Neue Folge, 22). Berlin. 1995. Duncker &; Humblot. 253 pp. (incl. Index). DM 98 pb. ISBN 3–428–08482–9. ISSN 0720–6704.

Der Kampf urns Recht: Forschungsband aus Anlass des 100. Todestages von Rudolf von Jhering. G. Luf and W. Ogris (eds.). Berlin. 1995. Duncker &; Humblot. 148 pp. DM 98 hb. ISBN 3–428–08435–7.