Abstract: This article examines the perceived and desired relationship between natural law and Irish law held by constitutional drafters, academic commentators and judges in the early twentieth century. References to natural law values in interpreting Irish law were not acceptable before 1922 when the entire island of Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom. In this period the concept of natural law was largely championed by the Catholic church but was also used by Irish nationalists to justify calls for independence. The emergence of the self-govern...
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