Ireland Program

Travel to three of Ireland’s most interesting communities – Limerick, Galway and Dublin – during KU Law’s three-week summer study abroad program in Ireland.

Ireland Program Application

Overview

Students participating in the University of Kansas Ireland Program take courses at two beautiful universities: The University of Limerick and Trinity College Dublin. Faculty from KU Law and the University of Limerick teach courses on relevant topics.

The first two weeks of classes will be held on the beautiful campus of the University of Limerick, a relatively new Irish university located on the banks of the Shannon River. The final week will be held at the famous Trinity College Dublin in the heart of Dublin’s Temple Bar area. Students will tour some of Ireland’s most scenic spots, including a weekend in Galway.

Financial aid and scholarships are available.

For more information, contact Professor Melanie Daily at melaniedaily@ku.edu.

A female student overlooks the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland
A group of students poses together in Ireland
Two students jump in the air in front of a historic landmark in Ireland



Program Information

See below for more information about the next program dates, application deadline, curriculum, admissions requirements and other details about KU Law's study abroad program in Ireland.


Program Dates and Application

The 2023 program is scheduled for July 9 - 28. The program application deadline was March 10, 2023.


Course Descriptions

Students in the Ireland program take three courses for a total of three credit hours (one credit hour per course). The first course will be completed during the first week of the program, and the second and third courses will be completed over the last two weeks of the program.

At a global level, families are regulated by a range of overlapping regimes that influence the formation and dissolution of family relationships, and in turn the concept of family itself. This course will begin with foundational international jurisdictional principles relevant to family law, and will then will examine differences in approaches to state regulation of the family in areas including family formation and dissolution, property and support, child custody, assisted reproduction and reproductive rights, protection from family violence, and other emerging topics. Discussion will often center on practical impacts on cross-border families in Ireland, other E.U. countries, Northern Ireland, and the United States. Several sessions will be reserved for student-led sessions on topics to be approved by the instructor. Objectives of the class include introducing students to basic international law concepts, introducing students to transnational aspects of family law, and developing students’ critical understanding of state intervention in family relationships amid rapidly evolving family demographics.

This course examines the impact of the European Union as a global legal regulator in the commercial world, where the failure of the US to regulate has allowed the EU to set various standards that are being adopted by default. This would look at the development of the EU, its law-making and regulatory processes as well as specific areas where it now has regulatory dominance such as data protection, finance, anti-money laundering, anti-bribery/corruption, health and safety etc. and the difficulties of sustaining the EU project as it lacks an inherent foundation.

This course will look at U.S. counterterrorism law from the perspective of other jurisdictions, in particular signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights. It will look at how the evolution of U.S. counterterrorism law particularly after 9/11, and its subsequent extension overseas, has conflicted, in varying degrees, with the laws of foreign allies such as France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Ireland. The course will be divided into three primary sections:

  • Attacking terrorists overseas – definition and classification of terrorism and terrorists; justifying military versus law enforcement responses; the use of targeted killings and lethal drones in foreign jurisdictions.
  • Detecting and preventing terrorism – international and domestic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and privacy concerns in European law; monitoring international commercial and financial transactions for terrorist links.
  • Detaining, interrogating and prosecuting terrorists – habeas corpus for non-U.S. citizens; U.S. interrogation standards and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR); extradition between the U.S. and EU jurisdictions; extraordinary rendition.
  • Information control and secrecy attempts to control the flow of information on counter-terror tactics, including the so-called wiki leaks and Julian Assange stand-off.

The course will also contrast the use of similar laws in the United Kingdom when dealing with terrorist activities in Northern Ireland, particularly between 1969 and today.


Program Faculty

Melanie Daily is a clinical associate professor and director of KU Law's Douglas County Legal Aid Clinic. Through the clinic, she works with law students to represent clients in juvenile and criminal defense, criminal record expungement, and other related matters.

Daily's scholarly interests focus on the intersection of state and family, particularly in the context of poverty, juvenile defense, education, and child welfare. She draws upon her experience in practice working with survivors of intimate partner violence and children charged with crimes as well as her work before law school developing and implementing a wilderness-based diversion and rehabilitation program for system-involved children in Florida and South Carolina.

Daily's current service outside the law school environment includes membership on the Kansas Judicial Council's Family Law Advisory Committee and Kansas Legal Services' Board of Directors, chairing a local Juvenile Justice Advisory Board, ongoing involvement in national legal education advocacy through the Clinical Legal Education Association, and delivering substantive presentations on juvenile law, family law, and legal education at local and national training events. She is co-editor of the nationally recognized Best Practices for Legal Education Blog.

She is a graduate of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, where she competed on the national trial advocacy team and participated in a top-ranked civil justice clinic, and the University of Chicago, where she worked on issues in urban education policy. Before joining the KU Law faculty, Daily clerked for the Hon. Kathianne Knaup Crane at the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District and was an attorney at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri Inc. She is proud to have been a member of the Missouri Bar Leadership Academy and a member of the inaugural class of the Shriver Center's Racial Justice Training Institute.

Raymond J. Friel is a graduate of UCC and the University of Exeter and was called to the Bar in 1986. After an appointment at University College Wales, he joined the School of Law at the University of Limerick in 1989. Since then, he was head of the School for nine years, interim head of the Department of History for one year, and university advocate for four years. He is currently head of the Law School again, for an unprecedented fourth term, since 2020.

He has held visiting professorships at Boston College Law School, Western University Law School in Canada, the University of New Hampshire Law School and the University of Kansas School of Law. His areas of specialization are contract and commercial law. He has authored leading treatises on contract, tax and business law.

He has published extensively both nationally and internationally in prestigious law reviews, including the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Fordham Journal of International Law, Common Law World Review, Arbitration, North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation, Journal of Legal Education, Washburn Law Review, University of Kansas Law Review and the uniform Commercial Code Law Review, to name a few.

Currently, he is director of the international commercial and economic law research group and is an examiner for entry to the legal profession for both the Honorable Society of the Kings Inns in Contract Law and an examiner Law Society of Ireland entrance examination in Tort Law. He has also been appointed to several universities as an external examiner and has been invited as an expert referee for a number of journals. He has been a principal investigator on the legal data environment for an EU research project on autonomous automobile safety systems with a total fund of nearly €5 million and a variety of partners including Honda motor vehicles.


Admission Requirements

This program is open to all KU Law students who have completed the first-year curriculum in good standing. Check back for application deadlines for the next session. Late applications are considered.

Grades are determined based on a written final examination in each course in accordance with KU Law grading procedures. Available grades are:

  • A (4.0)
  • A- (3.7)
  • B+ (3.3)
  • B (3.0)
  • B- (2.7)
  • C+ (2.3)
  • C (2.0)
  • C- (1.7)
  • D+ (1.3)
  • D (1.0)
  • D- (.7)
  • F (0)

Tuition and Costs

Visit the Ireland program page on the Office of Study Abroad and Global Engagement website for a breakdown of costs for this program.


Transportation

Students are responsible for their own transportation to and from Ireland. Once enrolled, students will receive an informational packet with information on airline options, travel options in Ireland and points of interest. The packet also includes general information about living in Ireland for three weeks. Students should not book travel until they receive an acceptance package.


Housing

Housing at the University of Limerick will be on campus. The campus features several amenities, including ATMs, laundry and dry cleaning, a bookstore and active pubs. Housing during the Galway and Dublin-center excursions will be at hostels unless the student makes their own arrangements. Housing during the final course week will be on campus at Trinity College Dublin.


Cancellation

Students must notify the University of Kansas by letter or email of their intent to withdraw from the program. If a student withdraws after being accepted for the program, they will be liable for the program deposit plus any non-recoverable expenses incurred on the participant's behalf. Students are responsible for any and all costs arising out of the student's own voluntary or involuntary withdrawal from the program prior to its completion, including withdrawal caused by illness or disciplinary action by representatives of the University of Kansas. The sponsoring school reserves the right to cancel the program for any reason, including insufficient enrollment. In the unlikely event of a cancellation, notices will be sent to all students and all money will be refunded.


Financial Aid

For students who would like to talk about application paperwork with David Wiley or financial aid with Michele Arellano, both are available for virtual advising appointments.

Virtual advising appointments
In-person advising appointments


Health and Liability Insurance

KU Law is not responsible for student's medical care or expenses in case of illness or accident. All students participating in a study abroad program are required to be covered by health insurance that the participant has determined to be adequate and satisfactory for any injury or illness that might befall them.


Students with Disabilities

Facilities in Limerick are generally not as accessible to individuals with disabilities as are facilities in the United States. Individuals with special needs should contact the program director to arrange for special accommodations.


State Department Travel Information

Information about travel advisories and warnings for Ireland is available on the U.S. Department of State website.


Ireland Contact

Professor Raymond Friel
School of Law
Foundation Building, University of Limerick
Castletroy, Limerick
Ireland
Phone: + 353 61 202348
raymond.friel@ul.ie

Questions?

Melanie Daily
Director, Legal Aid Clinic
Clinical Associate Professor
melaniedaily@ku.edu
785-864-5302

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