283 / 336
Reception for Mr. John Wylie
A reception to launch Mr. John Wylie's book on
Irish Land Law, which has just been published by
Professional Books Ltd., Abingdon, Berkshire, England,
at £16.50, was held by the President of the Law Society.
The attendance included apart from the speakers,
Professor Heuston (T.C.D.), Professor Hand (U.C.D.),
Mr. Lenehan (U.C.C.), Miss Neylon (King's Inns),
Professor Stout (Albany, New York) and members of
the Council.
Mr. Walter Beatty, Chairman of the Public Rela-
tions Committee, who presided, welcomed all the
speakers, and announced that it was hoped to publish
a book on Irish Criminal Cases in 1976. Mr. Justice
Kenny then delivered the following address.
Until 1860 the law of property in land in Ireland
was very similar to that in England. In that year
Deasy's Act was passed and changed fundamentally the
nature of the relationship in Ireland of Landlord and
Tenant. Another change came in 1891 when the Regis-
tration of Title Act was passed which made regis-
tration of title of all lands purchased under the Land
Acts compulsory. The greatest change, however, came
when, in 1925, the British Parliament passed the Law
of Property Act, the Settled Land Act and the Trustee
Act. These new Acts did not apply to Northern
Ireland. Shortly after they were passed Messrs Strahan
and Baxter wrote a book, on Real Property Law in
Ireland, but it concentrated on the older aspects of
the law and was of little assistance to those who had
to teach and those who had to learn modern property
law. It went out of print quickly and so Irish practi-
tioners were without a text book on land law.
The Succession Act, 1965, made fundamental chan-
ges in the law of the Republic of Ireland relating to the
way in which property descends on death; it made all
text books almost obsolete in the Republic. Before it
was passed practitioners had used Mr. Justice Megarry's
"Manual of the Law of Real Property" because in
each chapter he dealt with the pre-1925 law and the
post-1925 law. Professor Wade and he put us further
in their debt by publishing "The Law of Real Prop-
erty" in which, again, the pre-1925 law and post-1925
law were dealt with. The Succession Act, 1965, has,
however, made much of these two books inappropriate
to conditions in the Republic.
In 1970 Mr. Wylie, a graduate of Queen's and of
Harvard, and now on the staff of University College,
Cardiff, approached me for financial assistance from
the Arthur Cox Foundation of which I am chairman
towards the publication of a book on Irish Land Law
which was to deal with the law in the Republic of
Ireland and in Northern Ireland. I promised this and,
encouraged by his success, he asked me to act as con-
sulting editor for the law of the Republic of Ireland
and I agreed to do this.
He then began to write the book. The whole of the
first draft was written by him in longhand and typed
by his mother who lives in Belfast. When writing it he
had two particular aims. The first was to iftake use of
the rich heritage of Irish case law. The late Frank
O'Connor said that in the nineteenth century we had
turned our backs on our distinctive Irish culture. In
the twentieth century lawyers have ignored the rich
heritage of cases decided in Ireland on land law. Irish
cases decided before 1924 are rarely cited in Court but
the judgments of Fitzgibbon, Holmes, Walker and
Chatterton are as learned and as well written as those
of their contemporaries in England. We have reports
of Irish cases extending .back to the beginning of the
seventeenth century. The second aim was to relate the
law of property in land to Irish history. Land law can-
not be understood without a knowledge of social and
economic history and our law has been shaped by
legislation relating to confiscation and acts of attainder.
When he sent me the instalments of the first draft,
I was astonished at the width of his reading and his
knowledge of decided cases in Ireland. Then we decided
that it was impossible to produce the book unless we
met and worked through the text. He came to Dublin
on seven or eight occasions and together, we worked
through the whole book during what other people call
the vacations. The perils of co-authorship are notorious.
The partnership of Gilbert and Sullivan, which pro-
duced "Iolanthe" and "The Gondoliers", ended in the
law courts with a silly squabble about a carpet.
Although Mr. Wylie and I worked many days and very
long hours there was not a sharp word between us and
now that the book has been produced, I look back on
those days with happiness. There is another aspect of
the matter. A book in the process of being written
becomes to a man something like what a child is to a
mother. What one has written is perfect: it is the
result of long hours of hard work and endless polishing
of the prose. Although the book was his child, he
allowed me to rewrite three sections of it.
He was fortunate to be able to make arrangements
with Mr. Kirk of Professional Books Limited for the
publication of the book. They have been of enormous
assistance in getting the book through the printers.
We now have a book which deals with almost the whole
law of property in land in Ireland. Some idea of its
extent may be got from the fact that about five thous-
and Irish cases are referred to in the notes.
When the text had been completed, Mr. Wylie cheer-
fully undertook the enormous and tedious task of pre-
paring an Index of the contents and of the cases cited.
This is time-consuming and laborious work. So is the
checking of proofs.
It is an indication of the quality of our Irish cases
that Professional Books Limited are now doing a re-
print of all the decided cases in Ireland. I hope that for
the future we will have much more recourse to Irish
authorities on the law of property in land than we have
had up to now.
Mr. Wylie was one of the working party of four
which produced the Survey of the Land Law of North-
ern Ireland. It is well known that he wrote most of it.
Its purpose was not to state what the law was or is but
to state what it should be but in order to say what it
should be, it is essential to say what it is. I believe that
we have dealt with most problems which arise in the
day-to-day practice of land law. If there are any which
we have omitted, I strongly recommend you to consult
the Survey before you turn to English text books.
The book is intended primarily for students in the
Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. We hope
that it will be of assistance to practitioners and that
the numerous references to Irish cases will save them
many weary hours of research. It is almost impossible
to produce a text book which can be used by students
and which is suitable for practitioners. The practitioner