Dr. Rachael Walsh

I am an Associate Professor and Fellow at the School of Law, teaching and researching in the areas of property law and theory and constitutional law and theory. I am the Law School's Director of Global Engagement and Erasmus Coordinator. I previously worked as a permanent Lecturer in Law at King's College London. There, I taught property law and environmental law and served as the Director of the Joint Degree with Columbia Law School and the Study Abroad Programme. Prior to that, I was an Adjunct Professor at Trinity College Dublin. I completed my PhD at Trinity College Dublin, where I was funded by an Ussher Scholarship. I obtained an LLM degree from Harvard Law School as a Fulbright Scholar. I am also a qualified barrister. I am recognised internationally as a leader in constitutional law and property law. Throughout my work, I aim to connect legal theory and practice through analysing the underpinnings and drivers of law 'in action'. Key recent publications include Property Rights and Social Justice: Progressive Property in Action (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and Kelly: The Irish Constitution (Bloomsbury, 2018), which is the seminal text on Irish constitutional law. These books complement peer-reviewed publications in journals of high standing in both constitutional law and property law. My research examines how constitutions shape democracies and set parameters for solving social problems, both procedural and value-based. In my current projects, I analyse the role of citizens in constitutional reform and the balance between the individual and the community in the protection of property rights. I do so through the prism of global challenges, for example securing safe and secure housing (including over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic), effectively designing and implementing climate mitigation measures, and restoring trust in democracy. My property scholarship focuses in various ways on the question of how the State can restrict the exercise of property rights to secure the common good, analysing whether property law, and ideology, limits the legal and political scope for progressive policy reforms in response to urgent problems such as climate change. Accordingly, my research cross-cuts a range of subject areas, including property law and theory, constitutional law and theory, environmental law, planning law, housing law, and human rights law. As well as focusing on the interaction between constitutional law and property law, I research other constitutional problems. Given the rise of populist politics around the world, there is an urgent need to reconnect people with political processes. Increasing citizen participation is proposed as one solution, with Ireland pointed to internationally as a leading example. Arising out of my role as constitutional law advisor to the Irish Citizens' Assembly, my research also explores the role that citizens play in changing and updating constitutions, in particular through deliberative processes.

  Constitutional Law   Environmental Law   Land Law   Planning Law   Property Law

I have established myself as an international leader in property and constitutional law through 2 books and 39 articles/chapters. My scholarship distinctively integrates analysis of private law (governing legal relations between private individuals) and public law (governing State/individual relations), transforming understandings of disciplinary boundaries at national and international levels. I interrogate how legal protections for owners shape equitable responses to global challenges, like affordable housing and climate mitigation. For example, my accepted chapter in the forthcoming peer-reviewed "Oxford Studies in Private Law Theory" series critically analyses the relationship between legal regulation, stakeholder deliberation, and judicial decision-making in mortgage arrears crises. The importance of my research was reflected in its selection for the Provost's Annual Review. I achieve real-world impacts through my scholarship. I am currently Lead PI for the interdisciplinary ASHA (Achieving Sustainable Housing Affordably) project, awarded 400,000 euros in TRDA funding in June 2023, and I was previously Co-PI in the H2020 RESILENS project. My monograph 'Property and Social Justice: Progressive Property in Action' (CUP, 2021) showed how property rights and social justice can be effectively mediated through law. It was reviewed as 'exemplary' and 'insightful' (International Journal of Constitutional Law) and cited by the Irish Supreme Court in 2024. I broke new ground in Irish constitutional law as co-author of Kelly: The Irish Constitution (Bloomsbury, 2018). This treatise is recognised internationally as providing the authoritative academic analysis of all aspects Irish constitutional law and is routinely cited by the Irish Supreme Court. Relatedly, and arising out of my role as constitutional law advisor to the Citizens' Assembly, my research analyses how citizens influence constitutional reform, including through publications in leading international peer-reviewed journals, such as the International Constitutional Law Journal. This research also has important social impact, and I have advised at EU and international levels on citizen deliberation.