Subversive law in Ireland, 1879–1920

From 'unwritten law' to the Dáil courts

Heather Laird

'Ground-breaking in every sense, Heather Laird's brilliant discussion of the fusion of memory and modernity in agrarian insurgency is the most sophisticated treatment to date of the cultural forces that drove Irish people to keep a firm grip on their homesteads throughout the long duration of the Land War,' Professor Luke Gibbons, author of Edmund Burke and Ireland (2003).

‘The mystery of the Triune God is profanely re-enacted in this outstanding work, which is simultaneously two autonomous books and unimpeachably one … Utterly fascinating and penetratingly insightful work … She has made a formidable intervention in Irish and post-colonial studies in the virtually untilled field of law, both institutional and discursive, both as imperial repressive apparatus and as an anti-imperial guerrilla weapon,’ Tadhg Foley, Irish Literary Supplement.

‘[An] engrossing study of subaltern resistance to British rule … A book which is to be warmly welcomed for its meticulously researched and highly theorized delineation of the dynamics of power and resistance during the tumultuous last decades of colonialism in Southern Ireland,' Liam Harte, Field Day Review.