Human Rights Archive opens in Galway  

28 November 2014

Material and unique insights into the field of human rights from the life and scholarship of Dr Kevin Boyle, LLB 1965, has been put on display in the James Hardiman Library, National University of Ireland, Galway (NUI Galway).

Christopher Kevin Boyle (who died on 25 December 2010) was a Northern Ireland human rights activist, barrister and educator. He was among the first in the academic law community to engage in human rights activism.

Comprising of over one hundred boxes of manuscripts and printed books from his days as a lecturer at Queen’s and NUI Galway, the archive also covers Kevin Boyle’s ground-breaking legal cases before the European Court of Human Rights, his work in defence of writer Salman Rushdie and his time with the United Nations. Included in the documentation is a letter offering him his first temporary lecturer post at Queen’s on a salary of £1,470!

A childhood photograph of him as an altar boy in Newry cathedral, People’s Democracy stickers reading “Right on Viet Cong”, and correspondence relating to the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association are among the early items in the collection donated by his wife Joan and family.

A handwritten envelope from Bernadette Devlin (McAliskey) addressed to “Kevin Boyle, Political Agitator at Revolution HQ” is one of many items kept from his period with People’s Democracy, the socialist civil rights group formed with Queen’s students including Devlin, Eamonn McCann and Michael Farrell, after an October 1968 civil rights march.

Born on 23 May 1943 and brought up in Newry, Kevin Boyle studied law at Queen's. After graduating in 1965 he took a diploma in criminology at Cambridge and spent a year at Yale before returning to his alma mater as a lecturer in the Law Faculty (now the School of Law). During his time at Queen’s, where he remained until 1977, he was deeply engaged in the civil rights movement.

In the late 1970s he was appointed Professor of Law at University College Galway, (now the National University of Ireland, Galway). He became dean of the Faculty of Law there in 1978, and in 1980 established the UCG human rights centre. In the 1980s he helped to develop the Essex Human Rights Law Centre, at the University of Essex in Colchester, England.

Around that time Dr Boyle was also involved with Amnesty International, Ireland, which saw him compile research and observations on trips to countries like Gambia and South Africa – and where he drafted key reports on the effect of the 'pass law' system and of the wider apartheid regime.

In 1998, he was named Liberty's Lawyer of the Year, alongside Françoise Hampson, for their work advancing human rights claims before the European Court of Human Rights.

Professor Boyle served as director of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex from 1990 to 2001, before spending a year in Geneva (2001–02) as special advisor to former Irish President Dr Mary Robinson during her time as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. He returned to Essex University Human Rights Centre, where he again served as director in 2006–07.

An international symposium, hosted by NUI Galway’s School of Law and the Irish Centre for Human Rights was also staged to celebrate Kevin Boyle’s career, with Professor Sir Nigel Rodley from the University of Essex and Chair of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, providing the keynote address.

For further details on the Kevin Boyle Archive please contact the James Hardiman Library, National University of Ireland, Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland, telephone: + 353 (0) 91 493399, email: library@nuigalway.ie or visit www.library.nuigalway.ie

 

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