Constitutional Law: Text, Cases and Materials

In this thoroughly revised and updated second edition, the authors add new features aimed

at making this fascinating subject even more accessible for students, practitioners and law

teachers alike. It employs a "Comprehension and analysis: test yourself" tool at the

beginning of each chapter, as well as recommending "Five key readings" and "Five key

cases" in each chapter, thus engaging other great scholarship and material in this rapidly

developing field.

Constitutional Law: Texts, Cases and Materials, Second Edition, includes wholly new

chapters on the historical background to the Constitution, the political structure of

government, the judicial power in the context of the political arms of government, and

standards of review. It covers all significant constitutional developments up to April 2019.

This second edition is comprised of three thematic parts. The first part looks at the Irish

constitutional order in a broader historical, theoretical and comparative context. The second

part looks at "Institutions and the separation of powers." The third part addresses rights in

Irish constitutional law.

As well as introducing key principles and themes, this casebook offers a great deal of critical

insight and analysis. In doing so, it recognises that constitutional law is not just a body of

abstract rules interpreted and applied by the courts. Instead, constitutional law is placed in

its historical, intellectual and social context and presented as an ongoing attempt to

determine the values that ought to inform governance in Ireland. The important role of the

courts in this process is recognised by the central space given to extracts from all the

leading constitutional law cases.