Law in Irish Literature: Critical Approaches to Institutions, Power and Identity (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and the Humanities)

Róisín Á Costello provides a critical analysis of the ways in which law is portrayed in Irish literature and argues that authors from Ireland (writing in both Irish and English) have consistently used literature as a mechanism to challenge and critique institutional power.In doing so, she argues that Irish literature, and the narratives it has created about law, have been used to re-assert and recomplicate Irish identities at sites of conflict and to interrogate the legitimacy of power and how it is exercised. Drawing on a range of texts including novels, poetry, plays, song and satire, Costello illustrates that Irish literature has acted as a decolonial and intersectional force in critiquing the institution of law and constructing national, linguistic and political identities in Ireland.She traces a pattern in which Irish authors consistently used literature as a lens for legal analysis in Ireland, using their work to address fundamental concerns about the legitimacy of law, the role