An interdisciplinary approach to the legal history of Northern Ireland (1921 – 1948): Methods and sources

Approaches from legal scholarship include primary sources such as statutes and case law, as well as legislative histories which legal scholars rarely consider ‘history’ in the same way as historians. Rather, legal scholars often look to legislative histories to discern the intent of the legislature in enacting laws for the sole purpose of interpreting a statute’s meaning. This study utilises the research tools employed by legal scholars – statutory law, case law, and legislative histories – to examine the establishment of the legal system in Northern Ireland. The study will focus on the early period of devolution (1921 – 1948) and explore how a subordinate Parliament at Stormont used the law and the creation of a legal system to solidify Northern Ireland’s identity as a nation-state. //In framing the query of the study, it is apparent that simply tracking the establishment of the legal system in Northern Ireland to understand later legal precedent does not enable key questions to be answered. Branching out from typical sources utilised in legal research, I undertook an interdisciplinary approach by drawing on not only legal scholarship, but also social and cultural history, sociology, and anthropology, as well as the general field of social science. The study was reimagined to answer the question: Is the establishment of a new legal system, upon the bones of Ireland under Union’s system, an act of nationalism? More completely, if nationalism can only exist when the nation-state is firmly established, was the maintenance of the old system a way of maintaining continuity with national identity for the loyalists in Northern Ireland who firmly held Britishness as their identity?