Subversive Law in Ireland, 1879-1920

Contributes to a neglected topic in Irish literary and cultural history--the modes of protest and cultural forms available to the subaltern classes under landlordism. Using the economic writings of figures like John Stuart Mill and George Campbell and such literary works as Emily Lawless's 'Hurrish, ' Heather Laird shows that the so-called unwritten "agrarian code" of popular justice, though often depicted as anarchic and pathological, was pro-social as opposed to anti-social, emanating from an alternative moral code whose very existence undermined the legitimacy of the colonial civil law. The book explores this clash of legal systems and the resulting crisis in law administration.--From publisher's description.