Laura Cahillane

Constitutional Law, Legal History, Administrative Law, Judicial Studies

Laura is a Professor in the School of Law, University of Limerick. She is a first class honours graduate of UCC (BCL (Law and French) 2007, LLM (by Research) 2008, PhD 2012, PGCTHLE 2013). Her PhD, for which she was awarded an IRC Scholarship, considered the drafting of the 1922 Irish Free State Constitution. Laura undertook a Post Doctoral Fellowship in UCC and held lectureships in UCC and DCU before joining the School of Law at UL.

Her research interests lie in the areas of Constitutional Law, Legal History and Judicial Studies. She has authored a number of books, including Drafting the Irish Free State Constitution (MUP 2016) and Constitutional Law in Ireland (Kluwer 2020) and she has published her research in high-ranking national and international journals. In 2024 she received a President's Research Impact Output Award and was also named 'Legal Educator of the year' at the Irish Law Awards.

She is a frequent contributor to the media on legal and constitutional issues and has advised the Oireachtas on law reform on a number of occasions. Her work has been cited several times in the Dáil and the Seanad, by the Irish superior Courts and UK parliamentary briefings, among others. She was editor-in-chief of the Irish Judicial Studies Journal for 7 years and is now chair of the Irish Judicial Studies Network.