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Biography

Professor David Kenny is Professor in Law at the Law School, teaching and researching Irish and comparative constitutional law, conflict of laws, critical legal theory and law and literature. He is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Harvard Law School, and the Honourable Society of the King's Inns, and is an alumnus of the US State Department's Fulbright programme. He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 2021. Since 2024, he has served as Head of the Law School. Professor Kenny's research specialises in Irish and comparative constitutional law. He is co-author of the 5th edition of Kelly: the Irish Constitution, the leading text on Irish Constitutional Law, as well as many peer-reviewed articles in leading national and international journals on topics such as proportionality, constitutional culture, referendums, and executive branch legal advisors. He also researches widely in the field of law and literature. He has recently published a book with Routledge drawing together law, literature, and philosophical pragmatism entitled 'Pragmatism, Law and Literature'. Professor Kenny has worked on constitutional reform issues across the island of Ireland. He has given expert evidence on constitutional issues to the Citizen's Assembly, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice and Defence, and the Oireachtas Special Covid-19 Committee. He was a member of the Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland which reported in 2021, convened by the Constitution Unit of University College London and supported by funding from the British Academy and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. He was a co-ordinator of NSLMap, a recently-concluded project funded by the Shared Island Unit and Irish Research Council to map the convergences and divergences in various areas of law between Ireland and Northern Ireland. He served as a facilitator for the Northern Ireland Assembly Ad Hoc Committee on a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland. He co-authored a major report on the human rights impact of COVID-19 response measures for the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission in 2021. He also, from 2020-2023, worked with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission to develop a policy on constitutional change in respect of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. He is currently a member of the Research Advisory Group of An Coimisiún Toghcháin/The Electoral Commission. Farther afield, he worked with the Centre of Constitutional Democracy at IU Bloomington and the US National Committee on North Korea in 2021 to compile a report on constitutionalism on the Korean Peninsula. He has advised the Commission on the Constitution of the National Diet of Japan about matters related to referendums. In August 2023 served as a human rights/rule of law consultant and training expert for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in Ukraine. Since March 2024, he has served as an external expert for the appointments process for the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, setting written competence assessments in constitutional law for candidates being considered for appointment to the Court. He recently engaged with various stakeholders and International IDEA on reform of the Senate of Thailand. He currently serves as a Senior Distinguished Research Fellow at the Constitution Studies Program at the University of Texas at Austin, and as a Senior Fellow at Melbourne Law School. Professor Kenny currently teaches Constitutional Law and Critical Perspectives on Law. When not serving as Head of School, he teaches Conflict of Laws; Law and Literature; and judging in Apex Courts, co-taught with the former Chief Justice of Ireland. He was a recipient of the Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2015.

Research Tags

Comparative Constitutional Law Conflict of Laws Constitutional Law Irish Politics Referendums

Memberships

Membership of Professional Institutions, Associations, Societies

Details	Date From	Date To
Board Member and Supervising Lawyer, Irish Innocence Project	2014	2020

Publications and other Research Outputs

Publications

Peer Reviewed (65)
Non Peer Reviewed (12)

David Kenny, Pragmatism, Law, and Literature, Routledge (GlassHouse Books), 2025, Book, PUBLISHED

Religion and Law in Ireland and Northern Ireland in, editor(s)Andrew Holmes and Gladys Ganiel , Oxford Handbook of Religion in Modern Ireland, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2024, pp369 - 414, [Christopher McCrudden, Oran Doyle, and David Kenny], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED

The 1922 Constitution as a failed attempt to break from the Westminster tradition in, editor(s)Laura Cahillane and Donal Coffey , The Centenary of the Irish Free State Constitution: Constituting a Polity, Palgrave, 2024, pp175 - 196, [David Kenny], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED

Referendums in 2040: Future Challenges Facing the Successful Irish Referendum Process in, editor(s)Keigo Komamura , Platform and Democracy: The Future of Another Monster Demos, 2024, pp305 - 324, [David Kenny (trans. Satoshi Yokodaido)], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED

David Kenny, Reencountering texts: James Boyd White, legal reading, and bringing back the human, Yale Journal of Law and Humanities, 35, (2), 2024, p363 - 377, Journal Article, PUBLISHED

Oran Doyle, David Kenny, Christopher McCrudden, Law and Religion: Convergence and Divergence on the Island of Ireland, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 2024, p198 - 240, Journal Article, PUBLISHED

David Kenny, Liberation from constraint and the culture of the new Supreme Court: Afterword to the Foreword by Conor Casey and Oran Doyle, Dublin University Law Journal, 44, (2), 2024, p23 - 32, Journal Article, PUBLISHED

The Game Goes On: Why Legal Theorists Can Never Admit that Stanley Fish is Right in, editor(s)Thomas Bustamante and Margaret Martin , New Essays on the Fish-Dworkin Debate, Hart Publishling, 2023, pp75 - 95, [David Kenny], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED

Ireland in, editor(s)Jaakko Husa, Jan Smits, Catherine Valcke , Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, Edward Elgar, 2023, pp293 - 299, [David Kenny], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED

David Kenny and Conor Casey, How liberty dies in a galaxy far, far away: Star Wars, democratic decay, and weak executives, Law and Literature, 35, (2), 2023, p221 - 246, Journal Article, PUBLISHED

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Alan Eustace and David Kenny, Collective Bargaining and The Irish Constitution"Barrier or Facilitator?, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, December, 2023, p1 - 33, Report, PUBLISHED

Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, written by David Kenny, The Incorporation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights into the Irish Constitution, Oxford, February , 2023, Report, PUBLISHED

Oran Doyle, David Kenny, Christopher McCrudden, Fionnula Ní Aoláin, Legal Convergence and Divergence on the Island of Ireland: Report of the North-South Legal Mapping Projectto the Shared Island Unit, Oxford, Irish Research Council/Shared Island Unite, September, 2022, p1 - 19, Report, PUBLISHED

Conor Casey, Oran Doyle, David Kenny, Donna Lyons, Ireland's Emergency Powers During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, February, 2021, p1 - 104, Report, PUBLISHED

David Kenny, Conor Casey, Andrea Mulligan, Public Health Law During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Ireland, Chapter 1: Public Health Governance: The Role of NPHET , Dublin, COVID 19 Law and Human Rights Observatory, 2021, p11 - 28, Report, PUBLISHED

National Committee on North Korea, Constitutional Design in North and South Korea, May, 2021, p1 - 18, Report, PUBLISHED

David Kenny, Technical Report for the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission-Protecting Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Irish Legal Order, August, 2020, 1-40, Notes: [Commissioned by Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission to inform policy on inserting Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Irish Constitution], Report, COMPLETED

Renwick, Whysall et al, Interim Report of Working Group on Unification Referendums on the Island of Ireland , Oxford, Constitution Unit, UCL, October , 2020, Notes: [Designed to inform policy in UK and Ireland on calling and conduct of unification referendums in Ireland], Report, APPROVED

David Kenny and Eoin Daly, Report on the Constitutional Limits of the "Money Message" Procedure under Article 17.2 of the Constitution of Ireland, May, 2019, 1-20, Notes: [Report commissioned by Senator Collette Kelleher on use of money message procedure in the Oireachtas. Cited in the Oireachtas and by the High Court.], Report, PUBLISHED

Frank Clarke, David Kenny, Aine Ryall, How Courts Decide: adjudicative process of Supreme Administrative Courts, ACA (association of Supreme Administrative Courts) Europe, 2019, Report, PUBLISHED

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Awards and Honours

Award	Date
Elected Fellow of Trinity College Dublin	2021
Provost's Award for Excellence in Teaching	2015
Ussher Fellowship, Trinity College Dublin	2009-2012
Fulbright Scholar	2008-2009

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Professor David Kenny

Professor David Kenny

Professor In (Law)

HOUSE 39, COLLEGE

david.kenny@tcd.ie

3531896 8539

Head Of School (School Office - Law)