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Ireland: Northern Ireland and the Republic
Coroners and their inquests seem to have entered the Irish legal system at an early stage, probably from England . There are references to Irish coroners in early thirteenth century documents, and thereafter their development appears to have been similar on both sides of the Irish Sea. There was piecemeal reform from time to time (often following equivalent reforms in England), until the Coroners (Ireland) Act 1846 overhauled the entire system, providing the basis of inquest law in Ireland for over a century. Further reforms followed (inter alia) in the Coroners (Ireland) Act 1881 and the Coroners (Ireland) Act 1908.
With the partition of Ireland in 1922 into two separate legal jurisdictions,the law began to diverge in small ways. But it was not until the late 1950s and early 1960s that the two jurisdictions produced their own new primary legislation to replace the 1846 Act. In Northern Ireland the Coroners Act (Northern Ireland) 1959 introduced a number of differences both from the Republic and also from England and Wales. One was that only lawyers could become coroners. Another was that coroners should become the responsibility of central rather than local government. A third was the abolition of any criminal jurisdiction of the coroner (which only occurred in England and Wales in 1977). As amended, the 1959 Act is still in force. For the impact of human rights on coroners in Northern Ireland, see Coroners and Human Rights. There has recently been published a consultation document on reform to the Northern Ireland coroner system.
In the Republic the new law introduced was the Coroners Act 1962, which still has effect today. With certain small differences, this Act largely followed the English position, ie the Coroners Act 1887 as amended by the Coroners (Amendment) Act 1926. Some of the changes since effected in England (such as abolishing the need for a jury in a road accident case) have not been made in the Republic, and hence the differences are now more pronounced. At the end of 1998, the Irish Minister for Justice announced a major review of the coroner service: see the press release of 23 December 1998. This review reported in late 2000 and the report is available on-line. Some Irish coroners have their own webpages.
As for written materials, there are fullscale
textbooks on coroners' law in Northern Ireland, "Coroners' Law and Practice
in Northern Ireland", by Leckey and Greer, published in 1998 by SLS
Legal Publications (NI), and in the Republic by Farrell, "Coroners:
Practice and Procedure", published in 2000 by Round Hall Publications.
There is also a short but useful "Handbook for Coroners in the Republic
of Ireland", by O'Connor,
published in 1997 by Old House Press, Swinford, Co Mayo. A useful booklet, The
Work of the Coroner's Office, is available from the Northern
Ireland Court Service, and is also on its website.
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Last modified: Monday, 09-Aug-2004 08:53:13 BST by: Malcolm Bishop