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GAZETTE
JULY/AUGUST 1992
emotionally charged debate on
abortion throws up varying
interpretations of what the Supreme
Court did or did not decide in the X
case.
Michael V.
O'Mahony
A Casebook on the Irish Law of
Torts
(second edition), by Brian
McMahon and William Binchy;
(Butterworth Ireland Limited. 761pp,
£36.00 paperback).
The productivity of Messrs.
McMahon and Binchy continues
unabated. Having in effect
consolidated the 'corpus' of the Irish
Law of Torts in their textbook first
published in 1981, they quickly
followed with the first edition of
their casebook in 1983. Then came
the second edition of the textbook in
1989 and now in 1992 comes the
second edition of the casebook (as at
1 August, 1991). The second edition
of the casebook is conveniently
'dovetailed' into the chapter lay-out
of the textbook, making it very
useful for students and practitioners
alike. The "Notes and Questions"
which follow each judgment more
realistically bring home the obvious
- that the sources of the principles
of the law of torts are to be found
in decided cases. The American law
student, who learns his law through
the 'Socratic' case method, comes
face to face with that reality on day
one, but the Irish law student now
has for torts, thanks to McMahon
and Binchy, the advantage of having
the synthesis of both the deductive
textbook and the original source
casebook.
When McMahon and Binchy
published the first edition of their
textbook in 1981, a substantial
benefit of it was their identification
of a large number of relevant
unreported written judgments
resurrected from the archives of the
Four Courts, which otherwise would
have been forgotten and functionally
useless. A perusal of the second
edition of the casebook shows that
during the last decade all or virtually
all of the developmental cases in the
Irish Law of Torts have been
reported either in the Irish Reports
or in the Irish Law Reports Monthly.
If the learned authors have helped to
encourage that development, they
deserve an additional vote of thanks.
Michael V.
O'Mahony
Essentials of Irish Business Law
by Niall Sheeran, B. Comm, (Gill
and MacMillan, 294pp, £8.99
paperback).
To be is to do - Sartre,
to do is to be - Rousseau,
do be do be do - Sinatra.
Strangers in the night, is an apt
description of a layman's first
encounter with the law.
This book is aimed primarily at
students taking an introductory law
course. The author, Niall Sheeran, B.
Comm., teaches Irish Law at Senior
College, Dun Laoghaire and would
be more equipped than most to
understand the difficulty that
students may encounter when trying
to come to grips, for the first time,
with the vast body of law that exists
in Ireland today.
This book contains thirty-two chapters
in all and is split into seven sections
covering an introduction to the study
of law, elements of the law of tort,
the law of contract, commercial law,
European law, employment law and
the law of persons.
The purpose of this book is to give
an exposition of the principles of
Irish business law and is designed to
give students of commerce or
business studies sufficient legal
knowledge and analytical skills to
enable them to cope with and make
decisions regarding the routine legal
problems which they will encounter
in their future employment.
The material is presented in a clear
and concise manner which is readily
understandable. Each chapter
contains a list of the topics to be
covered, a summary of the purpose
of the chapter, a presentation of the
related rules of law, a list of the
important cases and/or statutes and
a progress test enabling students to
evaluate the level of knowledge that
has been assimilated.
The section entitled "An
introduction to the study of law",
provides an informative insight into
how the law has developed to its
present day state. It provides the
reader with the basic insight into
how the law works and by virtue of
the author's interesting treatment of
the topic, encourages the reader to
approach the different sections of
law covered in the book.
Each aspect of the law discussed is
dealt with in a satisfactory manner.
Over half the book is devoted to
discussion of the law of contract and
commercial law and the exposition
of these topics is, therefore, more
thorough.
Relevant case law is provided
throughout the book and a brief
summary of the facts is given along
with the decision of the court. The
reader loses nothing by not having a
full detail of the facts of each case
and, in fact, this layout may help
students by providing them with
necessary, rather than superfluous,
information.
A slight drawback with this book is
the brief treatment given to company
law. Most of the important aspects
of company law are mentioned, but
without ever attempting to
investigate any aspect in depth.
However this book is aimed at
providing an introduction to business
law and there are many fine texts
available elsewhere on company law
that would enable the student to
ascertain all he/she wishes to know
on this subject.
This book provides a good
introduction to business law for the
non-legal student. Furthermore, from
the diverse aspects of law that are
covered it could also be a good
starting point for those who are
considering law as a career and have
not studied law at a third level
institution.
Ronan
Baird
229