Connor Beaton

An employment lawyer who moonlights as an electropop musician has released her latest single. Fiona Sharkey, a senior associate at McInnes Dunne Murphy LLP, performs under the project name Sharkett and just released her new single, Shy, on major streaming platforms including Spotify.

Ireland's long-standing representative on a Council of Europe human rights body has resigned over its failure to speak out on Gaza. Human rights lawyer Michael Farrell has been a member of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) for the past 14 years, and has served at various

A solicitor who was forced out of her home by a relentless campaign of criminal harassment has urged legal professionals to break the “taboo” of speaking out about abuse. Emma Lyons, who runs a family and criminal law practice in west Belfast, joined the Law Society of Northern Ireland&r

Activists including Greta Thunberg who are mounting a high-profile initiative to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea are "acting where states have hitherto failed", an Irish human rights expert has told Irish Legal News. Dr Andrew Forde, an assistant professor in international law and human rights

The establishment of a Sentencing Council for Northern Ireland would increase public confidence in the criminal justice system, the Ulster Unionist Party's justice spokesperson has told Irish Legal News. Doug Beattie, who sits on Stormont's justice committee, said the establishment of a dedicated bo

An Irish lawyer has welcomed an Italian court ruling that women in same-sex relationships who conceive children abroad through IVF should both be named as mothers on their children's birth certificates. Italy's Constitutional Court yesterday ruled that it was discriminatory not to include the names

Government proposals to allow guardianship rights to be "removed" from a parent convicting of killing the other are unlikely to be constitutionally permissible, a legal academic has warned. Ministers last week published the general scheme of the Guardianship of Infants (Amendment) Bill 2025, which s

Barristers appearing in the most serious criminal cases in Northern Ireland are effectively being asked to do twice the work for half the pay they were getting two decades ago, the chairperson of the Bar of Northern Ireland has told Irish Legal News. Donal Lunny KC, who took up office in September,

ILN's Connor Beaton talks to Philippa Greer about how UNRWA is battling to preserve international humanitarian law in Gaza, where at least 42,800 Palestinians have now been killed in Israel's military response to the October 7 attack. Philippa Greer had already accepted the top job in UNRWA’s

‘Necrogamy’ might sound deeply unpleasant, but in fact refers to a lawful practice in France — one of the only jurisdictions in the world to allow, in certain circumstances, posthumous marriage between a living person and their deceased partner. And Mrs, a bittersweet dark comedy

The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by convicted murderer Graham Dwyer in a case concerning the admissibility of evidence which was obtained in breach of EU law. Delivering judgment for the Supreme Court, Mr Justice Maurice Collins said the court had dealt with "materially identical issues" in

Criminal barristers across the State have withdrawn their services today in a major escalation of The Bar of Ireland's campaign for fee restoration. Dozens of barristers and some solicitor colleagues defied the wind and rain to gather in front of the Criminal Courts of Justice in Dublin this morning

Pro bono work has been "mainstreamed into the Irish legal culture" — but that was not the case until relatively recently, FLAC chief executive Eilis Barry points out. When Ms Barry joined the legal charity FLAC in 2016, Éamonn Conlon SC, then a partner in A&L Goodbody LLP, had just

An independent working group has been established to review the Law Society of Northern Ireland's handling of the trainee pay issue which threatens to leave some firms out of pocket to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds. A special general meeting taking place in Law Society House yesterday hear

Connor Beaton delivers his verdict on French legal drama Anatomy of a Fall.