The fifth edition of Kelly: The Irish Constitution was launched  at the Bar Council Distillery Building in Dublin 7, hosted by Attorney General Seamus Woulfe. 

A total of 200 legal professionals gathered last Thursday to launch the fifth edition of what Seamus Woulfe called “probably the leading textbook in Irish law”.

The attorney general then paid tribute to the late Mr Kelly, who was a noted public speaker and enjoyed a distinguished career as a UCD law lecturer, TD, senator and attorney general.

Orator

The attorney general said that John Kelly’s reputation as a “great orator of the old tradition” should be remembered, and especially the “peculiar clarity” of his Oireachtas speeches. 

The fifth edition is published by Bloomsbury Professional, and edited by constitutional law experts Dr Gerry Whyte of Trinity College, Advocate-General at the EUCJ Gerard Hogan, and Trinity professors Dr Rachael Walsh and Dr David Kenny.

Essential reading

Publisher Bloomsbury describes it as essential reading for all who require knowledge of the Irish legal system, saying it is a seminal work and the definitive commentary on Ireland's fundamental law.

Each article of the Irish Constitution is set out in full, in English and Irish, and examined in detail, with references to all the leading Irish and international case law.

Dr Whyte acknowledged his “intellectual indebtedness" to J.M. Kelly, a man who set tremendously high standards in terms of his “erudition, clarity of expression and industry".

Lapse

He said the fourteen-year lapse between editions was admittedly “unconscionable” according but the delay was at least in part attributable to an “explosion in constitutional jurisprudence” – and he credited his co-authors in getting the project get over the line.

The book costs €325 and is published by Bloomsbury Professional.