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  • 17 - Courting the Past

  • Edited by David Capper, Queen's University Belfast, Conor McCormick, Queen's University Belfast, Norma Dawson, Queen's University Belfast
  • Book:
    Law and Constitutional Change
    Published online:
    26 September 2025
    Print publication:
    16 October 2025, pp 307-340
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  • Summary

    This chapter provides an account of the Public Records Office of Ireland as a legal repository, before its destruction in 1922 as an early ‘casualty’ of the Irish Civil War. The chapter supplies a succinct account of Ireland’s historic courts and their record-keeping, providing an overview of the legal contents of the Public Record Office of Ireland at the moment of its destruction. Using several case studies, the chapter then illustrates the process of archival reconstruction through the use of substitute and replacement sources, spanning the late medieval period up to the end of the nineteenth century. It argues that attempting to reconstruct these lost legal archives constitutes a powerful method of historical reappraisal, revealing how many of Ireland’s historic courts were created, evolved and disappeared.