The production, marketing and exportation of food is particularly important to the Irish economy. The sector continues to grow and has played a very significant role in Ireland's financial recovery. This important new book provides a much needed overview of the field. It traces the history and development of the fledgling system of food law as it was in Ireland during colonial times and the Irish Free State, through to an examination of the current dynamic relationship between International, European Union and domestic laws on matters such as food safety, food labelling and advertising, protected food names, hygiene and food contamination. The book also contains detailed assessments of the ways in which the law is used to address current health concerns, such as those related to nutrition, obesity and alcohol abuse, as well as such issues as food fraud, animal welfare, organics and the use of technologies like genetic modification, cloning and nanotechnology in food production.

History and development of Irish food law -- Domestic, European Union and international food law -- Key actors in Irish food law -- EU rules on the free movement of food -- Food safety -- Chemical and biological safety of food -- Food labelling and advertising -- Protected food names -- Nutrition, obesity and health -- Ethical and environmental aspects of food law.

As whimsical as the Irish themselves, these ancient Irish laws date back to the first century BC and are a testament not only to age-old traditions, but also to the Irish love of justice. Today these laws are appealing as much for their fair-mindedness as for their offbeat humor and naive charm.

This book provides a broad conspectus on the application of EU and international regulation of the food sector on English law. It is aimed at practitioners and students of this vital and emerging branch of law, which has become an important part of current political and legal debate. It is written not just for lawyers as a statement of current law, but is also aimed at all those involved or interested in the food industry who wish to familiarise themselves with how the law is applied practically in this jurisdiction. The book commences with a short conceptual framework for the study of food law. It then provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of current English law, explaining fully the detailed processes by which both international and national law and EU decision making have impacted upon most aspects of the production, sale and consumption of food in England. The book explains and assesses the operation of the current law by describing in detail the roles of Government, the Food Standards Agency and local enforcement authorities in the making and enforcing of laws concerning food. The work contains full outlines of the developments in the most significant areas of food law. It concentrates specifically on topics such as food labelling and advertising, quality and compositional requirements, geographical food names, genetic modification, organic production, animal welfare and also the role of law in tackling poor health, obesity, and diet-related disease. The book, though primarily designed as a law text, goes beyond the usual confines of such works. It sets out to explain and describe the impact of successive food crises, such as BSE and the use of horsemeat in beef products, on food safety and transparency requirements. The book considers and assesses how the existing rules on the chemical and biological safety of food impact on our law, and concludes with a review of the developing legal issues concerning the environmental impacts of current and proposed food law, in particular the relationship between food law, climate change and food security.

Food rioting, one of the most studied manifestations of purposeful protest internationally, was practised in Ireland for a century and a half between the early eighteenth century and 1860. This book provides a fully documented account of this phenomenon, and seeks to lay the foundations for a more structured analysis of popular protest during a period when riotous behaviour was normative. Though the study challenges E.P. Thompson's influential contention that there was no 'moral economy' in Ireland because Ireland did not provide the populace with the 'political space' in which they could bring pressure to bear on the elite, its primary achievement is, by demonstrating the enduring character of food rioting, to move the crowd from the periphery to the centre. In the process, it offers a rereading of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Irish history, and of the public response to the Great Famine. [Subject: History, the Great Famine, Irish Studies, 18th & 19th Century Studies, Social History]