Mohr, ThomasThomasMohr2019-11-212019-11-212013 Cambr2013-11Cambridge Law Journal0008-1973http://hdl.handle.net/10197/11216It is often said that Ireland is still awaiting its Holdsworth. In fact scholars have been lamenting the lack of a comprehensive legal history of Ireland long before William Searle Holdsworth wrote his monumental, if flawed, History of English Law. Calls for the creation of a comprehensive text on Ireland’s legal past have been heard since at least the 1840s. The nineteenth century historian James Hardiman exhorted future scholars by emphasising the "abundance of recorded materials" awaiting them. (Tracts Relating to Ireland, vol. ii, (Dublin 1843), p.14). Alas, much of this source material was lost forever during the Irish civil war in 1922 with the destruction of most of the legal documents stored in the Public Record Office located at Dublin’s Four Courts.enThis article has been published in a revised form in the Cambridge Law Journal https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008197313000937. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © Cambridge University Press.Irish legal historyReview72380380510.1017/S00081973130009372019-09-25https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ie/