Name: Seán Patrick Donlan
Position: Lecturer
Email: sean.donlan@ul.ie
Phone: +353 61 234199
Fax: +353 61 202417
Office: FG020
Description
BA (Houston), JD (Louisiana), PhD (Trinity College Dublin).
A native of Louisiana and resident in Ireland for the past decade, my teaching at the University largely focuses on comparative law, jurisprudence, and public law.
My current research interests are a combination of comparative law, jurisprudence, and legal history. I'm especially interested in 'legal hybridity and diffusion', the mixtures and movements of law, past and present and around the globe.
I've published on American constitutional history, Anglo-American and comparative legal history, comparative law, Edmund Burke and legal theory, Irish history and legal history, and statutory interpretation.
I chair Juris Diversitas, am Vice-President of the Irish Society of Comparative Law, and am on the executive of the European Society for Comparative Legal History and the Irish Legal History Society. I am also a member of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists and past Secretary of the Eighteenth-century Ireland Society/Cumann Éire san Ochtú Céad Déag.
I also blog for the Comparative Law Blog, the European Society for Comparative Legal History Blog, and the Juris Diversitas Blog.
Teaching Interests
At the University (past and present)
* Comparative legal systems (day and evening)
* Comparative public law (LLM Programme)
* Introduction to European and Comparative law (LLM Programme)
* Jurisprudence (day and evening)
* Legal system and method (day and evening)
* Public international law (MA International Studies Programme)
* Public law I (for law and non-law students)
Outside of the University (past)
* Comparative legal systems and legal pluralism (with Dr David Zammit, University of Malta (Malta)): Faculty of Law, University of Malta (Malta, Autumn 2009-10)
* Comparative constitutional law: University of Limerick Summer Study Abroad Program of the Law Schools of the University of Kansas and the University of Seattle (13 July-1 August 2009).
* Comparative legal traditions: January Term of the Faculty of law, University of Western Ontario (Canada, 5-30 January 2009)
* Comparative Constitutionalism: Summer in Lyon Program of the Paul M Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University (held at the Université Jean Moulin-Lyon 3 (France), 30 June-18 July 2008)
* European legal history: LLM Programme of Trinity College Dublin (Spring term 2008)
* European legal history: University of Limerick Summer Study Abroad Program of the Law Schools of the University of Kansas and the University of Nebraska (3-28 July 2006)
* European legal history: LLM Programme of Trinity College Dublin (Autumn term 2005)
Outside of the University (future)
* Comparative legal history: hybridity and diffusion: LLM in International and European Law Programme of the Université Jean Moulin-Lyon 3 (France, Academic year 2010-11)
* Civil and common law traditions: Queen's University (Kingston, Ontario, Canada) Global Law Program at Queen's Bader International Study Centre at Herstmonceux Castle (East Sussex, UK, May 2011)
Research interests
* Comparative law, legal history and theory, and public (constitutional) law
* 'Legal hybridity and diffusion', ie legal mixtures and movement, past and present and around the globe, including:
o European legal history, hybridity, and the iura propria,
o the 'classic mixed jurisdictions' combining the continental and Anglo-American legal traditions
o Mediterranean legal mixes, especially Malta and Italy.
Selected publications
Forthcoming
* '"All this together make up our Common Law": legal hybridity in England and Ireland, 1704-1804' for Professor Esin Örücü (University of Glasgow), Mixed legal systems: new frontiers (Wildy, Seminal Studies in Comparative Law series, 2010)
* Editor and introduction (with Dr Michael Brown (University of Aberdeen)), Law and the Irish, 1689-1848: power, privilege and practice (Ashgate, 2010)
* 'Arthur Browne's commentaries on the laws of Ireland' for Donlan and Brown (eds), Law and the Irish, 1689-1848: power, privilege and practice (2010)
Books/Journals in print
* Editor of, and introduction to, the conference proceedings of the Irish Society of Comparative Law Inaugural Conference 2009 in (2009) Electronic Journal of Comparative Law (The Netherlands, available at www.ejcl.org/133/issue133.html)
* Editor, Edmund Burke's Irish identities (Irish Academic Press, 2006)
* Editor, reprint of Francis Stoughton Sullivan, Lectures on the constitution and laws of England (2nd edn, 1776) (Clark, NJ: the Lawbook Exchange, 2004)
Articles in print
'SSRN' refers to the Social Science Research Network (note that most of these articles were posted in September 2009).
* '"The debt is forgotten": a compendious view of Arthur Browne, 1756?-1805' (2009) Electronic Journal of Comparative Law (The Netherlands, available at www.ejcl.org)
* '"Our laws are as mixed as our language": commentaries on the laws of England and Ireland, 1704-1804' (2008) 3 Journal of Comparative Law 178 and (2008) 12:1 Electronic Journal of Comparative Law (available at www.ejcl.org/121/abs121-6.html and SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1474248)
* With Rónán Kennedy (University of Limerick, now the National University of Ireland, Galway), 'A flood of light?: Comments on the Interpretation Act 2005' (2006) 6:1 Judicial Studies Institute Journal 92 (SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=991334) and www.jsijournal.ie/html/Volume%206%20No.%201/6%5B1%5D_Donlan&Kennedy_The%20Interpretation%20Act%202005.pdf)
* Introduction and 'The "genuine voice of its records and monuments"?: Edmund Burke's "interior history of Ireland''' in Donlan, Edmund Burke's Irish identities (2006) (for the latter, see SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1474289))
* '"The places most fit for this purpose": Francis Stoughton Sullivan and legal study at the University of Dublin (1761-6)' (2005) 18 Eighteenth-Century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr 122 (SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1474251))
* 'Law and lawyers in Edmund Burke's Scottish enlightenment' (2005) 20:1 Studies in Burke and His Time (ns) 38 (SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1474292))
* Introduction to reprint of Francis Stoughton Sullivan, Lectures on the constitution and laws of England (2nd edn, 1776) (Clark, NJ: the Lawbook Exchange, 2004)
* 'The Reformer?: Edmund Burke, "scorned loyalty, and rejected Allegiance"' (2004) History-Ireland 21
* '"A very mixed and heterogeneous mass": Edmund Burke and English jurisprudence, 1757-62' (2003) 4 University of Limerick Law Review 79 (SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1474338))
* 'Little better than cannibals: Property and progress in Sir John Davies and Edmund Burke' (2003) 54 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 1 (SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1474298))
* 'An active intelligent people: Edmund Burke's Scottish enlightenment' (2003) 3:4 History-Scotland 32
* "Language is the eye of Society": Edmund Burke on the origins of the polite and the civil' (2003) 18 Eighteenth-Century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr 80 (SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1474328))
* '"Beneficence acting by a rule": Edmund Burke on law, history, and manners' (2001) 36 Irish Jurist (ns) 227 (SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1474334))
* 'Legal rites: substance and shibboleth in American constitutional jurisprudence' (2001) 3 Trinity College Law Review 125 (SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1474323))
* 'Virtue and vigour: The federalist and American civic republicanism' (1999) 21 Dublin University Law Journal (ns) 90
Review articles in print
* 'The jury and the common law': Review article of JW Cairns and G MacLeod (eds), "The dearest birth right of the people of England": the jury in the history of the common law (2002) in (2003) 25 Dublin University Law Journal (ns) 277 (SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1474296))
* '"A thing without cohesion of parts": the professional and pedagogical contribution of mixed jurisdictions': Review article of VV Palmer (ed.), Mixed jurisdictions worldwide: the third legal family (2001) and J Smits (ed.), The contribution of mixed legal systems to European private law (2002) in (2003) 38 Irish Jurist (ns) 383 (SSRN (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1474285))
Reference entries in print
* Twenty-five entries for the Royal Irish Academy's eight volume Dictionary of Irish Biography (2009)
* 'Magna Carta' for the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences ((2nd edn) 2008)
* 'William Blackstone (1723-80)' for the Dictionary of literary biography: eighteenth-century British historians (2007)
* 'Edmund Burke (c1729-97)' for the Dictionary of literary biography: eighteenth-century British historians (2007)
* 'Thomas Leland (1722-85)' for the Dictionary of literary biography: eighteenth-century British historians (2007)
* 'Charles O'Conor of Belanagare (1709/10-91)' for the Dictionary of literary biography: eighteenth-century British historians (2007)
Administrative functions
* Course Director, LLM (General) Programme (2008-present)
* Graduate Law Board, including the LLM in European and Comparative Law, the LLM (General), the LLM in International Commercial Law, and the MA/LLM in Human Rights in Criminal Justice (2008-present)
* Faculty Teaching Board (2006-present)
* Faculty Coordinator, Cooperative Education Programme.
* Supervisor, numerous 'Final Year Projects', LLM dissertations, and doctoral theses.
* Associate, University of Limerick Institute for the Study of Knowledge in Society (2007-present)
External functions
Professional associations (selected)
National and international committees/councils
* Founding member and Executive Committee, the European Society for Comparative Legal History (2009-present)
* Founding member (2007) and chairperson (2009-present), Juris Diversitas (an international and interdisciplinary legal community focusing on legal traditions crossing national and social boundaries)
* Founder (2008) and Vice-President, Irish Society of Comparative Law (2009-present)
* General Secretary, National Committee (the Republic of Ireland) with the International Academy of Comparative Law (2008-present)
* Executive Council Member, Irish Legal History Society (2004-present)
Member
* World Society for Mixed-Jurisdiction Jurists (2004-present)
* Eighteenth-century Ireland Society/Cumann Éire san Ochtú Céad Déag (2002-present)
* Irish Jurisprudence Society (2009-present)
Editorial Boards
* Studies in Burke and His Time (2005-present)
Past
* Secretary, Eighteenth-century Ireland Society/Cumann Éire san Ochtú Céad Déag (2004-2008)
* Eighteenth-Century Ireland/Iris an dá chultúr (2004-2008)
* University of Limerick Law Review, co-editor (2001-2) and editor (2002-3)
