Our Legal Heritage

Pope Gregory IX, the 178th pope of the Catholic Church from 1227 to 1241, is often remembered for issuing a Papal Bull declaring that cats bore Satan’s spirit, which subsequently led to huge numbers of cats being killed throughout Europe. The mass extermination of the continent’s felines

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) gave judgment in the significant case of Airey v Ireland 43 years ago this Sunday. The case was taken by the late Josie Airey who sought a High Court separation order from her abusive and alcoholic husband of around 20 years. However, Mrs Airey could not af

St Patrick’s Day has long been a date of special significance in the Irish diaspora calendar, with Irish communities across the world marking the occasion with parades and céilís. This year in particular will see millions of people celebrating the day together for the first time

As the US passes a bill named for a young boy whose brutal racist murder shocked America and the wider world, ILN takes at look at the the case and the injustice that followed. On August 28, 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American boy from Chicago, was tortured and murdered by t

If nothing else is proved, Giuffre v Prince Andrew, Duke of York will at least have shown the public’s fascination with the private lives of royalty, writes Andrew Stevenson. This is not new. It is 200 years since the death of Queen Caroline. Born in the German principality of Brunswick, Carol

This Sunday marks the centenary of the escape of three men from Kilmainham Gaol, at that time both a British military barracks and a political prison.

No matter how bitter, few divorces end with the murder of the presiding judge. But in one case from Scotland's bloody legal history, an irate husband, incensed at having to pay aliment to his ex-wife, took the ultimate revenge on the sitting judge: The Lord President Sir George Lockhart of Carnwath.

Graham Ogilvy enjoys a new presentation of the famous denouement of demagogue Joe McCarthy at the hands of Boston lawyer Joseph N Welch. It is an epic moment in American legal history that played out live on US television – and now new light is shed on the withering exchanges between veteran B

The latest series of the gritty and stylish TV drama Babylon Berlin, set in Weimar Germany, introduces Hans Litten as a civil rights lawyer battling to save the life of a woman sentenced to death after being tricked by the Nazis into assassinating Germany's Jewish chief prosecutor. Connor Beaton sha

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the world’s largest unsolved art theft, in which 13 pieces worth around $500 million, including paintings by famous artists such as Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and Manet, were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.

Curran spent many years defending United Irishmen who faced capital charges, the most famous of which were William Orr, Napper Tandy, and Wolfe Tone. His defence of Oliver Bond on the 23rd of July 1798 “was considered by the bar as the most powerful of his efforts upon the state trials of this

Perhaps the most famous trials of John Philpot Curran’s career were those in which he appeared as defence counsel for leading figures of the Society of United Irishmen.  While the Rebellion of 1798 was still raging, on 12 July 1798, Curran represented a fellow member of the Irish bar, Hen

John Philpot Curran was one of the most accomplished Irish lawyers of the late 18th and early 19th century. An excellent orator, Curran’s speeches in the courtroom were regularly met with great acclaim. Born in Newmarket, County Cork on 24 July 1750, he was heavily influenced by his mother, Sa

On Wednesday 7 January 1761, Dorcas Kelly (also known as Darkey Kelly) was executed near St Stephens Green in Dublin. Darkey was a sex worker and “brothel keeper” who had been found guilty of the murder of a shoemaker called John Dowling the previous year, and her sentence was “to

On the centenary of the Government of Ireland Act 1920, this piece of legislation will be recalled for effecting the partition of Ireland into Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. What may be overlooked is that David Lloyd George’s Government of Ireland Act 1920 included a subsection which p