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GAZETTE
SEPTEMBER 1985
company) particularly comprehensive and useful.
However, although part eight (liquidation) is useful
as far as it goes, it could perhaps have been expanded,
to give for example a fuller definition and treatment of
preferential debts, and to answer some specific points
on the question of liquidator's costs.
As against this, it may be inappropriate to look for a
full treatment of liquidation in a text-book on company
law.
Enough has been said to indicate this reviewer's opin-
ion of the book's presentation and content, but it must
also be added that the author writes so elegantly, so fel-
icitiously, and so clearly that the book is a positive
pleasure not only to read, but to re-read, and even, or so
I gather from students, to study - "omne tulit punctum
qui miscuit utile dulci".
David Tomkin.
Cases and Comment on Irish Commercial Law and
Legal Technique
by Raymond Byrne, The Round Hall
Press, Dublin, 1985. 163 pages, £9.95.
I must declare an interest as a colleague of the author.
This book is an excellent, and by the yardstick of Irish
prices, an inexpensive little book, which every practit-
ioner and student interested in commercial law should
acquire. Even those who hold series of law reports may
find it useful to have within one volume these selected
cases and the useful commentary.
Academics, will also find the collection of cases help-
ful, and will be impressed by the quality of the com-
mentary. The salient feature of the introduction to the
extracts from the cases is that the summary of the facts
of the decisions quoted is brief but sufficient, but the
critical discussion of
Wall
-v-
Hegarty and Callnan
(1980) I.L.R.M. 134. The Author's analysis of Barring-
ton J.'s use of part of the Supreme Court decision in
Finlay
-v-
Murtagh
(1979) I.R. 149 indicates a short-
coming in Barrington J.'s judicial reasoning in
Hegarty.
In so doing the Author makes it clear what in the par-
ticular instance constitutes the difference between ratio
and obiter. Within five carefully-worded lines, Mr.
Byrne has indicated the substance of
Finlay,
levelled a
tactfully-worded criticism of
Wall,
and explained the
difference between ratio and obiter.
This work, according to its preface, is "aimed pri-
marily at students in Irish third level colleges taking
commercial law as part of a business studies course".
The needs of this particular market — a large and an
ever increasing one — were largely forgotten until the
production of Liam O'Malley's
Business Law
(Sweet
and Maxwell, London 1982), and Denis Linehan's
Irish
Business and Commercial Law
(Irish Legal Publications,
Cork, 1981). These works, although both have their def-
iciencies and limitations, have proved extremely useful to
students, not only of business studies, but of law too.
However, useful though these books may be, it has been
difficult to guide students away from an exclusive reliance
on text-books towards a critical analysis of the leading
Irish cases mentioned in the text-books.
This book goes a long way to the solution of the
problem, by providing a necessarily-limited selection from
leading Irish cases (six of which are still unreported) with
clear and comprehensive expository and introductory
matter.
The fundamental difficulty which Irish academic
lawyers face in compiling works of commercial law,
whether case-books or commentaries, is the fact that the
term "commercial law" or its equivalent "business law"
derives from Roman law via the law of certain juris-
dictions foreign to Continental Europe. However, these
recognise distinctions foreign to us between civil law
and commercial law which are in particular circum-
stances embodied in different codes and are applicable
to distinct transactions or bodies of persons.
In Ireland "commercial law" appears to comprehend
that body of the general law which deals with the
creation, formation and breach of contracts negotiated
between businesses, their bankers, agents, employees
and indeed competitors (trade marks, passing off).
What topics should be included and what left out?
Specifically should commercial law deal to some
degree with legal reasoning, method and practice isolat-
ing from the general law what, in the judgement of the
author or teacher, constitutes material of particular
importance to an understanding of commercial law?
These questions are important, and I did not feel that
they were answered or addressed in this book; but in the
author's defence, he writes (about the absence of a table
of cases, of statutes and an index). . . "in a text of this
small size the chapter headings and extracts speak for
themselves and . . . it would be an undue burden on
readers to add an extra element to the price for a rela-
tively small return". However much the reviewer may
cavil about the absence of some sort of prolegomena
defining what commercial law is, Mr. Byrne's readers
will in general side against this reviewer and with the
author.
This reviewer offers three more criticisms of the book.
First, the book deals both with introductory and
methodological material, and also with aspects of "core
commercial law" such as banking, agency, etc. The
balance seems weighted in favour of introductory and
general material. For this reason, I was surprised by
some of the inclusions. One example suffices. The
discussion and comment on
McGee
-v-
The Attorney
General
(1974) I.R. 284 failed to pass the "so-what"
test. Much of this indubitably important aspect of the
approach or introduction to the general law relevant to
commercial law should be taught either in Introductory
Law Courses or Contract Law Courses. There is a case,
therefore, for a separate volume dealing with Intro-
duction to Legal Method and Reasoning; and I throw
down this gauntlet to Mr. Byrne and to The Round Hall
Press.
Indeed this apart, and addressing the selection of the
core commercial law material, readers of Mr. Byrne's
work will feel that although his selection of cases is as
judicious as is his commentary upon them, his concept
of what constitutes commercial law does not correspond
with their own. They will not be surprised by the
inclusions, but they may be disappointed by omissions,
and in subsequent editions, of which I hope there will be
many, this work will no doubt contain additional sections.
Next, this reviewer would favour a greater element of
comparative law in the commentary. References to the
direction that the law has taken in other jurisdictions are
particularly valuable to students whose field is not prin-
cipally law, and who would not be expected, therefore,
352