Book Reviews Henry Murdoch, A Dictionary of Irish Law. (Revised 2nd ed.), Glenageary: Topaz Publications, (1993) 596 + xiii pages. £33 paper; £48 hardback. The Dictionary of Irish Law provides a basic and comprehensive introduction to the Irish legal system. Its emphasis is distinctly provincial with a primary focus on the substantive areas of domestic legal regulation. The book is organized on a strictly definitional basis, working its way alphabetically from legal terms in common use derived from local practice to those borrowed and imported from other jurisdictions. The strength of the book is that it provides a concise source from which the perimeters of Irish law can be constructed. Its understandable limitations are the brevity of its discussion and a lack of critical appraisal of issues relevant to those structures. The focus on international and European law is limited. The legal relationships of the Irish state with the European community, the United Nations, and various international human rights instruments are all functionally described in the text. This approach serves a useful purpose for the reader unfamiliar with basic structural information pertaining to international organizations and treaties. However, this limits the value of the work for the internationalist seeking knowledge on distinctive statutory and judicial responses to international obligations within the Irish jurisdiction. The descriptive approach avoids mention of the constitutional and political difficulties created by Ireland's membership in the European Community and its ratification but non-incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law. The lack of such discussion limits interest for the reader seeking to ascertain the response of the Irish legal system to supra-national legal dialogue. Nonetheless, the dictionary provides a comprehensive starting point from which to assess the domestic legal system. Combined with other specialist sources, it may be used to contextualise the interplay of the international legal order with the local. Fionnuala Ni Aolain Harvard Law School
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