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Donal Coffey

@donalcoffey.bsky.social
2.3K followers 434 following 1.9K posts

Constitutional law, legal history. Assistant Prof in Maynooth University, Ireland.

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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 10h
Anchorite's cell, Fore.
The interior of a Church with a cucifix inlaid on the floorA spartan cell
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
My kids still haven't been to a home game where Ireland have lost. I have had to explain to them that this isn't normal.
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Mary Gilmartin @marygilmartin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Work stoppage for @ifut.bsky.social members. Monday. 12-1. Part of public sector industrial action across Ireland. www.independent.ie/irish-news/s...
independent.ie
Schools likely to shut due to strike as unions tell minister there is ‘no basis for us to engage in negotiation’
Parents receive messages warning of disruption on October 14
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Maynooth south campus in autumn.
A quad with a reddining of ivy in the side of a building.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Glendalough yesterday.
A lake nestled between two hills, a shrub in foreground. The sky has a scattering of clouds.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Why don't we just build a full university in Derry?
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Maynooth in autumn.
A quad with foliage starting to colour red.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Pauric and Diego vote out Anna and then Carla, Pauric takes the cash? #TraitorsIRL
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Clever move by President Connolly - by referring to the text of the Constitution, she cannot be accused of trying to intervene on policy grounds. www.rte.ie/news/ireland...
She added: "He asked me my thoughts on the North (Northern Ireland), and I referred back to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and consensus.

"And again, it was handy to have the Constitution because that’s set out in our Constitution that that issue will be resolved through consent.

"He asked me specifically, would it be resolved during my lifetime and I said I hoped it would.

"He made a joke about age, but a complimentary joke I might add, but we went back to the issue in relation to that, I would like to see it in my lifetime.

"But I went back a number of times to the constitution."
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The Chief Justice launched our new Research Centre for Legal History today, and we had great papers by colleagues afterwards. We're looking forward to interesting work in the future.
The Chief Justice at a lecternSome colleagues at the morning session in front of the room.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Fossa are going senior!
A view from Fitzgerald Stadium when Fossa win the Kerry Intermediate Championship
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
This is why she was elected.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
We are launching the Research Centre for Legal Historyon 16.09.26. I am delighted to say that we have a great line up of incredible speakers. We have a very limited number of spaces in the room, but wanted to open it up to the wider legal history community www.eventbrite.com/e/2000181837...
eventbrite.com
Research Centre for Legal History Launch
This event is the launch the Mayooth University School of Law and Criminology's newly established Research Centre for Legal History.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
It's been a bit hectic with work this week, but just to note: (a) the news about the LGFA and, seperately, citizenship is not good, (b) nothing is over yet, (c) Ireland is a country where officials respond (sometimes only respond) to pressure, so (d) contact your reps.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Troy Parrott scores on his Champions League debut!
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
We are launching the Research Centre for Legal Historyon 16.09.26. I am delighted to say that we have a great line up of incredible speakers. We have a very limited number of spaces in the room, but wanted to open it up to the wider legal history community www.eventbrite.com/e/2000181837...
eventbrite.com
Research Centre for Legal History Launch
This event is the launch the Mayooth University School of Law and Criminology's newly established Research Centre for Legal History.
01414
Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Nothing like an objective source to weigh up the pros and cons...
An email from Currencyfair with the subject line 'Wise vs Currencyfair: which is right for your transfer?'
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I think I'm going to be butchering the Irish language in a short clip on TG4 in a bit talking about the proposed citizenship changes.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Interesting comparative riff on Mozart's 'Don Giovanni', Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata', and John Field's nocturnes by Alice Sara Ott at the Rheingau Music Festival last night.
The exterior of Schloss Johanisberg, the world's first riesling winery.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
We're going to need a bigger bike shed...
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Sam Tranum @samtranum.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
So maintain fuel excise cuts to subsidise driving more, and raise public transport fares -- is that where we are at with transport policy atm
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Someone should commission a series based on Mantel's 'A Place of Greater Safety'.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Taking the kids to see Coyote v Acme. As it currently stands, they are the only children in the cinema.
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UK Constitutional Law Association @ukcla.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Ben Yong: The Civil Service: A Public Good, Not the Enemy Within ukconstitutionallaw.org/2026/08/27/b...
ukconstitutionallaw.org
Ben Yong: The Civil Service: A Public Good, Not the Enemy Within
Reform Party MP Danny Kruger is concerned. The UK, he says, has ‘a bloated, paralysed centre of government and a mutinous bureaucracy’; and that ‘Real power is held not by the elected government bu…
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Pat Gilroy in the Irish Times today. He's right about Dublin. Once you split them up though, the population variance is much less acute. Why don't we trial it for 5 years or so and see how it goes? (www.irishtimes.com/sport/gaelic...)
Nearly six years on, Gilroy isn’t for rowing back. GAA growth in the capital needs more clubs and more land and, of course, more housing, but official predictions are that Dublin will have a population of over two million by 2050. Gilroy feels that will inevitably impact on the playing fields.

“Unless we’re absolute idiots, Dublin should win everything. If Dublin gets itself properly organised, which it will, that will happen,” he said. “I laugh when people go on about the tradition of the counties. Who put the counties there? The British. We didn’t have counties before that, we had túatha. The túatha was more or less like a GAA club. Why are we so wedded to the county system – a British system?
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Legal History Blog @legalhistoryblog.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
dlvr.it
Bremer on the Judges Bill and Administering the Courts
Emily S. Bremer, Notre Dame Law School, has posted Making Our Ministry of Justice, which is to appear in Notre Dame Law Review Reflection: William Howard Taft (LC) This Essay evaluates the Judiciary Act of 1925 from an administrative law perspective. It argues that principles ordinarily associated with administrative governance pervade the law's origin, purpose, means, and effect. The cumulative result was to transform the Supreme Court from an appellate court of last resort into a ministry of justice, i.e., an agency at the head of a hierarchically organized federal judicial branch.  --Dan Ernst 
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Some disquiet at home when I revealed to the kids that all of the correspondence relating to the children is filed under 'expenses'.
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 26/08/2026
They disinvented the VCR. You might think that the reason we don't have VCRs anymore is because VCRs were supplanted by DVDs, PVRs and streaming, but that's not the case. They had it in for the VCR from the very start, and they never stopped trying to kill it. Eventually, they succeeded. 1/
A 1960s family living room in which a mom, dad and two kids are mesmerized by a cabinet-style TV. The image has been altered. The TV has an early 1990s VCR atop it. The TV screen is displaying a cross-sectioned human head with brains and spine on display. A huge fist has materialized in the room, with bloody spiked knuckle-dusters, smashing into the VCR. The oil painting over the sofa has been replaced with a pulp image of a male head, its cranium removed and replaced by a dome. Inside the dome is a red eight-segment VCR clock, displaying 12:00. The background in the painting is a tangle of cassette tape. The whole image's colors have been boosted, giving it an overexposed look.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
"Wuster sauce".
A pack of Northern Irish tayto with the heading "Wuster sauce". The bag is purple.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Dublin Bay.
A Herbert Sims shelter, with the sun setting and a tidal inflow. The skyline is gold, then orange, then white, then varying shades of blue
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Fleadh Baile Átha Cliath.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
New Irish Legal History Society monograph just arrived. Free with membership of the Society: www.irishlegalhistorysociety.org
Daire Hogan "The judges of Ireland 1866-1921'
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I feel like I might be missing something in US law, because what argument is there against impeaching Alito for breaching Article 1, section 9 for accepting a knighthood in the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George?
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
PSA: Irish judges have started putting their extra-judicial speeches online: www.supremecourt.ie/supreme-cour... It may prove to be a useful research tool for scholars.
supremecourt.ie
Speech Archive
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
John Speed's 1610 map of Dublin shows clearly why the official name of Trinity (pictured in the middle right below if you are trying to view it on a phone) is 'The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth *near* Dublin'.
An old map of Dublin with Ostmantown north of the river Liffey, establishments south essentially ended next to St Patrick's Cathedral, and a square labelled 'the Colledge' to the east and separated from the main settlement area.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
This should be illegal.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
John Speed's 1610 map of Dublin shows clearly why the official name of Trinity (pictured in the middle right below if you are trying to view it on a phone) is 'The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth *near* Dublin'.
An old map of Dublin with Ostmantown north of the river Liffey, establishments south essentially ended next to St Patrick's Cathedral, and a square labelled 'the Colledge' to the east and separated from the main settlement area.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Fifteens.
Crushed biscuit mixed with condensed milk, with cherries and marshmallows
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
A Count with a bin on his head.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
The 5th Legal Histories of Empire conference is going to be held in Bengaluru 13-15 July 2028: lhbe.org/save-the-dat...
lhbe.org
Save the Date - Legal Histories of Empire V - Legal Histories of Empire
Please save the date 13-15 July 2028. We are delighted to announce that we will be hosted for Empires V by NLSIU Bengaluru. We will likely also have a pre-conference part day on the 12th (for those wh...
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
The Ballybough Cemetery built in 1857, the oldest Jewish cemetery using the Hebrew calendar to date it (5618).
The front of an old stone building with a plaque with the inscription "built in the year 5618"
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Jay Roszman @jayroszman.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
1/5 📣 An article I've written about the Queen's University in Ireland, its constituent colleges, and their relationship to the British Empire has been published with @jbritishstudies.bsky.social. The article makes the case for rethinking about the Queen's University's purpose in Ireland. 🗃️
cambridge.org
Institutions of Empire? The Foundation of the Queen’s Colleges and British Imperial Service, 1845–85 | Journal of British Studies | Cambridge Core
Institutions of Empire? The Foundation of the Queen’s Colleges and British Imperial Service, 1845–85 - Volume 65
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
The Festschrift for Gerard Hogan has a landing page: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/public-la... Coming out in 2027. Great stewardship by @laurcah.bsky.social and @grahambutler.bsky.social in organising this.
bloomsbury.com
Public Law and the Centrality of Courts
This book celebrates the life and legacy of one of Ireland's greatest ever jurists – Gerard Hogan. Across his career as an academic, Advocate General at the Cou…
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
The Haughey family have set up a website about Charles Haughey. It will no doubt be an invaluable and objective resource for researchers in the future. www.charlesjhaughey.ie
charlesjhaughey.ie
Charles J. Haughey
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
I went to a BBQ at a friend of mine's in-law's in Dalkey about a decade ago. We decided we would go to the pub to catch the hurling, only to find they had the horse show on instead.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
If you read the story, this was for a $64k tax bill on a $20million house.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Dublin Bay on a glorious summer morning.
The sun abive Howth hill, gently lapping water, barely a cloud in the sky.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Hart have a landing page for the book now: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/judicial-... Open Access at the start of 2027.
bloomsbury.com
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
This open access book tells the story of how a standing board of judges in London has shaped the constitutional laws of Commonwealth countries through its most…
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
On a pedantic note, Ceuta is an exclave, not an enclave.
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Donal Coffey @donalcoffey.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Might see if I can get these through a library...
£1037.50 price tag for a book with the button 'add to cart'
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