The Gazette 1990

JULY/AUGUST

1990

GAZETTE

Review of Irish Law, 1987 and 1988 (Bu t t e rwo r t hs) - f o rmi ng a sizeable proportion of the entire complement of modern Irish legal works. With this new edition of McMahon and Binchy, further impetus has been given to the option for our law of torts to develop its own special Irish character, without necessarily following the thinking of English text book writers or English judicial precedent. Your reviewer has been given the oppo r t un i ty of reviewing, in tandem, both the second edition of McMahon & Binchy and the sixteenth edition of Clerk & Lindsell (q.v. infra). Therefore, with confi- dence, one can conclude by advising that it is essential that every Irish common law practi- tioner and law student should have within easy reach the former and most desirable that every such practitioner should have ready access to the latter. One instance of practical legal inspiration acquired from the pages of either would more than j us t i fy the acquisition cost of both. M I C H A EL V. O ' M A H O NY

McMahon and Binchy, Irish Law of Torts Second Edition (1990). Butterworth (Ireland). IRE49.50. The second edition of McMahon & Binchy is to be welcomed nine years after its first publication. This time round, this unique Irish work on Torts has a new publisher, Butterworths, (which acquired Professional Books in the interim), and is considerably changed, both in chapter lay-out and in size - from some 600 pages to more than 850 pages; with overall presenta- tion and quality of printing and binding much improved. The second edition contains the law on the subject up to April 1989, with the important Supreme Court medical negligence decision of that month in Dunne -v- National Maternity Hospital forming a large part of the preface. In legal content, as before, this edition is both readable and pre- pared to the highest standard, and it contains a lot that is new. Since 1981 the Supreme Court has de- livered judgments on a number of topics relevant to a book such as this, including solicitors' and medical negligence, defamation and injunctions; the Oireachtas has passed the Animals Act 1985, the Control of Dogs Act 1986 and the Data Protection Act 1988; and the EC Directive on Products Liability, after a very long gestation period, has now been born and will soon form part of our domestic law. All are dealt with in this new edition. Of the authors, William Binchy B.L. remains a vital cog in the ever rotating wheels of the Law Reform Commission, while Dr. Bryan M. E. McMahon, solicitor, has recently bravely sallied forth from the halls of pure academia to almost full- time legal practice in Ennis, combined, for old times' sake, with a part-time law professorship in UCG. Since 1981, their respective considerable publishing energies are represented, jointly, by their Casebook on the Irish Law of Torts (Professional Books, 1983) and, severally, by McMahon & Murphy (Finbarr) European Community Law in Ireland (Butterworths, 1989); Binchy, Casebook on Irish Family Law (Professional Books, 1984); Binchy, Irish Conflicts of Laws (Butterworths, 1988); and, Byrne (Raymond), and Binchy, Annua!

I NCORPORATED LAW SOC I E TY OF I RE L AND

FINAL

EXAMINATION

FIRST PART

Chief Internal

Examiner

in Contract The Society wishes to recruit a Chief Internal Examiner in the Law of Con t r act for the Society's Final Examination — First Part. Applicants for the post must be qualified solicitors with substantial experience in the area of Contract. The post provides an oppor- tunity to work with leading academics and an attractive fee is available. Applications with Curriculum Vitae should reach the under- signed by Friday 20th July 1990. Professor Laurence Sweeney Director of Training, Incorporated Law Society, Blackball Place, Dublin 7.

ASSOCIAT ION INTERNATIONALE DES JEUNES AVOCATS A I J A Annual Congress 1990

Barcelona

17—21 September

Topics discussed during the Congress will include: —

* Counselling clients about Franchising.

* Environmental Law — legal liability for environmental damage.

* Package holidays — liability of tour operators and travel agents. * Recent trends in Taxation.

* How to establish a law firm abroad or a transnational firm.

* Living together or being married — an economic choice.

* Deadlock contractual clauses.

Registration date is 15 July, 1990. Registration forms and further information can be obtained from Michael Irvine, Matheson Ormsby & Prentice (Tel. 760981) or Petria McDonnell, McCann FitzGerald (Tel 765881).

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