A Year in Review 2024: Staff Highlights

13 Jan 2025

As we bid farewell to another year, we reflect on some of 2024’s highlights at the UCC School of Law.  Now is the turn of key Staff Highlights.   

Our staff are the backbone of the School of Law, and we are delighted this year, as ever, to celebrate their achievements and welcome new colleagues to the team.   

Farewells 

We wish a very happy retirement to Professor Steve Hedley who retired at the end of August and our School Manager, Dr Kay Taaffe, who retired at the end of September. 

Steve Hedley 

Steve Hedley has a record of great service to the School and the field of private law scholarship more generally.  At School level he served as Dean and Head of School from 2009-2012.   He has been a mentor to many junior colleagues, a key part of being a professor.  At College level he was the longest serving member of the College of Business & Law Executive Management Committee serving from its inception up to earlier this year.  A very important University level contribution was his work on rewriting the University Statutes, a mammoth endeavour, bringing the university statutes into the modern era. Steve is a very highly regarded and popular teacher in the School – covering Contract Law in first year through to postgraduate level where he specialised in cybercrime and internet law.  Notably Steve also developed and co-ordinated a University-wide module in Law & Technology.   Steve’s research in private law has always been cutting edge and he has a very significant body of publications.         He also maintains a blog/internet resource on Private Law Theory which is regarded as a leading resource in the private law sphere and an internet site on Restitution law.  Above all Steve has been a great colleague, very supportive and always willing to help and his sense of humour in his teaching and engagement with his colleagues much appreciated. We are hoping that Steve will become Professor Emeritus, and he will be delivering Contract one last time in 2025 and continuing his research. 

Kay Taaffe 

Kay Taaffe has been an excellent School Manager and colleague since her appointment as School Manager in 2019 joining the School from Quality Enhancement.  She has led the Professional Services Staff Team in the School very effectively, motivating an already excellent team at a time of constrained resources, and has shown great empathy and understanding towards colleagues in the face of the challenges we all face in our lives.  Kay never lost sight of the need for ensuring we had a full PSS complement and we finally achieved that earlier this year with Kay’s tireless efforts playing a key part in securing that outcome.  The School has encountered many challenges in the last few years from the pandemic to expansion caused by its fantastic research successes and Kay has always been equal to the challenges identifying solutions and opportunities whenever possible.   Kay has served with the Dean since almost the start of his role in 2019 and they have worked very well together.  Kay’s wise counsel has been much valued by the Dean, and in the School Executive, School Meeting and in College Executive Management Committee.   Kay will be much missed in the School and beyond in UCC. 

New appointments 

Kate Falconer 

Dr Kate Falconer, who has started with the School in February 2024 having moved from the University of Queensland.  Kate is a private law scholar in property, trusts and equity.  Her main research interests lie in the law of the dead and bodily disposal, and the ways in which the private law interacts with death, the dead, and dead bodies. She is particularly interested in the impacts and implications of new technologies both for private law and society more broadly.  Kate has been appointed under the Radical Humanities scheme and will be sharing her time between the School and the Radical Humanities Futures cluster.    

Dr Nessa Lynch appointed as the Matheson Lecturer in Law, Innovation and Technology  

Dr Nessa Lynch joined the School in late March to take up the Matheson Lectureship in Law, Innovation and Technology from her roles as Academic Director of the Royal New Zealand Police College and Research Fellow at the Faculty of Law, Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University Wellington where she was previously an Associate Professor and Reader in Law from 2008 to 2022. Nessa is a graduate of the School of Law, UCC and has returned to Cork and to UCC, almost 20 years after completing her BCL and LLM studies.   Nessa will undertake and supervise interdisciplinary research in areas of high societal interest such as facial recognition technology, the use of AI in the courts and legal practice, children’s rights and emerging technologies, and the implementation of the new European Union AI regulations. 

Other New Appointments 

In addition, the following postdoctoral researchers and research assistants were welcomed to research project teams during 2024:   

Alyssa Fraser (Research Assistant - Administration), Claire Raissian (Postdoctoral Researcher), Elizabeth GratyHood (Research Assistant), Lotte Koning (Research Assistant on Ursula’s Project), Emily Murray (PhD), Esther Montesinos Calvo-Fernández (Research Assistant), Katie Reid (Child/Youth Participation Advisor), Orla Martin (Research Support Officer). 

The School was also delighted to welcome Allison Carroll and Darragh O’Brien to programme support roles within the Professional Services Team.  

Further appointments will follow in 2025. 

Adjunct Professors 

In September 2024 School of Law was delighted to announce the appointment of eight new adjunct professors for three-year terms, beginning in semester one of the 2024/25 academic year. Details can be found here. 

External Appointments

Many colleagues continue to perform key roles in public life at national and international level. 

A notable new external appointment was that of Dr Nessa Lynch being designated for appointment as a member of the new Policing and Community Safety Authority. 

In October 2024 the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, TD, announced appointments to the senior roles created under the Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024 commencing landmark reform of An Garda Síochána and its oversight bodies.  

The Authority will be responsible for overseeing and assessing in an independent and transparent manner the performance by An Garda Síochána of its function relating to   policing services to support the effective provision and continuous improvement of such services to the benefit of the safety of the public. It is also required to keep the Minister informed of developments in respect of matters relating to policing services and to make recommendations to assist the Minister in coordinating and developing policy in that regard. 

Professor Emerita Caroline Fennell to chair new agency Cuan 

Professor Caroline Fennell, professor emerita of law at University College Cork, has been appointed as chairperson of Cuan.  The new statutory agency tasked with tackling domestic, sexual and gender-based violence was formally opened in February 2024. 

Joining Professor Fennell on the inaugural board are Sarah Benson, Molly Buckley, Denise Charlton, Vivian Geiran, Conor Hanly and Claire Loftus. 

Staff Awards

UCC Long Service Awards 2024 

At the UCC Long Service Awards held in December 2024, three School of Law colleagues were recognised with Professor Ursula Kilkelly, now UCC Vice-President Global Engagement, being recognised for 25 years-service and Professor John Mee and Declan Walsh, Vice Dean Internationalisation, being recognised for no less than 35 years-service.   These three colleagues have made an immense contribution to UCC and the School of Law over their combined 95 years of service! 

College of Business & Law Staff Recognition Awards 

At the College of Business & Law Staff Recognition Awards which also took place in December 2024, two School of Law colleagues were recognised, Dr Aisling Parkes in the Leadership category and Professor Áine Ryall in the Exceptional Citizen category. 

Aisling was nominated for taking on very significant leadership roles within the School as Programme Director of both the LLM in ADR and the BCL.  In the former capacity Aisling led the approval process for the new programme which launched in September and secured professional accreditation from both arbitration and mediation professional bodies.   In the latter capacity Aisling leads the largest of the BCL programmes and is heavily involved in implementing the UG review.   She undertakes these roles on top of significant commitments as School Disability Liaison Officer and a member of the UCC Lecturer Probation and Establishment Board as well as successful research achievements (see Research Highlights). 

Áine was nominated for her incredibly significant and impactful role as Chair, since 2021 of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee, previously serving as Vice-Chair from 2017 and as a member from 2015.  The role of Chair is an international leadership position within the United Nations organisation and is similar to an international judicial appointment at the highest level.  The Compliance Committee’s main function is to carry out legal reviews in a manner similar to a court in the field of environmental human rights.  The UN Economic Commission for Europe’s Aarhus Convention provides members of the public across 47 States with rights to (1) access to information, (2) participate in decision-making, and (3) access to justice in environmental matters.  These rights empower individuals and NGOs to challenge breaches of environmental law in their States as well as State Party non-compliance with the Convention.  Individuals and NGOs can submit complaints directly to the Compliance Committee alleging breach of Convention obligations.   Where the Committee finds in favour of the complainer it makes recommendations for changes to national law, policy and/or practice. Its work has led to enormous impacts on legislation, jurisprudence and practice in the 47 State Parties, and in other countries and continents as well.  Áine’s exemplary leadership takes place against the background of increasing pushback by State Parties against the rights protected by the Aarhus Convention making her role and that of the Committee she chairs all the more significant.