Drafting the Irish Constitution, 1935–1937

Donal K. Coffey is Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

1. The Drafters of the 1937 Constitution.- 2. The Preamble.- 3. Nation and State.- 4. The Head of State.- 5. Institutional Structure.- 6. Citizen and State.- 7. Constitutional Transitions and Alterations.

"[Coffey] is almost unique in combining the skills of an expert historian and constitutional lawyer and with these two stunning books he takes this research to an entirely new level. ... Coffey has produced two companion volumes which are likely to stand the test of time as the definitive accounts of the drafting of the Constitution. These two volumes combine the assiduous attention to detail of the historian with the lucid and crisp analysis of a profound constitutional scholar." (Gerard Hogan, Parliaments, Estates and Representation, Vol. 40 (3), 2020)

“[Coffey] is almost unique in combining the skills of an expert historian and constitutional lawyer and with these two stunning books he takes this research to an entirely new level. … Coffey has produced two companion volumes which are likely to stand the test of time as the definitive accounts of the drafting of the Constitution. These two volumes combine the assiduous attention to detail of the historian with the lucid and crisp analysis of a profound constitutional scholar.” (Gerard Hogan, Parliaments, Estates and Representation, Vol. 40 (3), 2020)