Ireland’s First Undergraduate Animal Law Module in a Law School

Abstract

This article is an account of how I came to set up Ireland’s first module in animal law at undergraduate level in a law school. I give an insight into my multidisciplinary and international academic background which sheds light on my influences. I also talk about how I became vegetarian and later vegan and my involvement with the Vegetarian Society of Ireland. At one point, I was determined not to develop an academic interest in animal law, but I was often asked to give talks about vegetarianism and veganism, human rights, genetically modified animals, cultivated meat and animals so eventually I resigned myself and gave in to the inevitable. There were three catalysts which decided when this would be: I was invited to become a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in 2014 and have presented and published with the Centre ever since; after Brexit I stopped teaching English Land Law; and, the Cambridge Centre for Animal Rights Law invited me to do their teaching workshop in Antwerp in 2022. My very supportive Head of School, Dr. Charles O’Mahony encouraged me to propose the module soon afterwards, it was approved and run for the first time in 2025.