ABSTRACT
Mental health law, including forensic law, originates in the common law tradition of legal precedent rather than careful legislation (McAuley, 1993). Psychiatric defences in Ireland have been influenced by its sociocultural and economic history, historical alliances, and influences of ideas and laws from many other nations (Prior, 2003, 2008, 2017). Violence often occurred in the context of revolutionary protests and was sometimes exploited for political purposes in the press. One instance of this was the Maamtrasna Murders of 1882, where a clear miscarriage of justice occurred because the Irish-speaking defendants could not understand the proceedings conducted in English (Kelleher, 2018).
