Living and Working in Ireland by the Gaelic Judges of Ireland and working with codified law with a strong brehon influence.13 Ultimately the committee produced recommendations that were mostly adopted and implemented with the Courts of Justice Act, 1924. While the committee had gone to great lengths to create a separate and distinct system, there was still one major problem hanging over their heads: the Privy Council. The right to appeal to the Privy Council was viewed by the Protestant minority as a means to protect themselves from the Catholic State, but to the rest of the state it stood as little more than an embarrassment. In accordance with the Anglo-Irish treaty, Article 66 of the Constitution of the Free state permitted appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. This had been a major point of contention for nationalists and Article 66 was drafted in such a way so as to limit appeals and establish the supremacy of the Irish courts. Nonetheless the fact that decisions of the Supreme Court in Dublin could be appealed in London undermined the autonomy of the Free State’s courts. Until 1935 following a ruling from the Privy Council itself, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council stood as a looming reminder to the Irish judiciary that it was administering justice in a dominion and not in an independent state. While there is a rich history of legal practice on the island of Ireland that predates any British rule in Ireland, as Irish students are told at the beginning of their studies, our legal system is heavily based on the English system. Over the past century we have seen the development of a more distinctly Irish system with departures in areas such as negligence and land law, but as Geoghegan J put it, this has been a gentle evolution rather than anything really revolutionary.14 However, the institutional framework maintains a notably English character. During those early days of state building, ambitious figures were held back by the Treaty and the Constitution of the Free State. Instead of having the freedom to create a unique and fully independent system, they had to create the system of a dominion. As mentioned, we have seen some changes, but nothing monumental. The goal of hearing the voice of the Gael was achieved, but it is heard in a courtroom firmly built on English roots.
13
Mac Cormaic, (n 9) 25. Hugh Geoghegan, ‘Three Judges of the Supreme Court of the Irish Free State, 1925-36’ in Felix M Larkin and NM Dawson (eds), Lawyers, The Law and History: Irish Legal History Society Discourses and Other Papers 2005-2011 (Four Courts Press 2014) 31. 14
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