Róisín A. Costello
Global Visiting Associate Professor of Law
Home Affiliation: Director of Global Relations; Assistant Professor of EU and International Law, Trinity College Dublin
Dublin, Ireland
Teaching Term: Fall 2026
Office: 2187 Eck Hall of Law
Staff Assistant: Joshua Kiper
Website: https://www.tcd.ie/law/people/professors/costelri/
Dr Róisín Á Costello is an Assistant Professor in the School of Law at Trinity College Dublin where she acts as the Director of the Jean Monnet Centre for Excellence on Freedom of Expression and Democratic Resilience in the Digital Age (DEMCONEX) which is funded by the European Commission through the Erasmus+ programme. She is also the Deputy Director of the Trinity Centre for Constitutional Law and Governance. Róisín is a public lawyer who researches and works on the intersection of individual rights and digital technologies as well as on minority language rights. Her work has been published in Global Constitutionalism, the German Law Journal, the Human Rights Law Review and the Irish Judicial Studies Journal. To date Róisín’s books include ‘Privacy Law in Ireland’ (Bloomsbury, 2023), and ‘Law and Irish Literature’ (Edinburgh University Press, 2026) as well as co-edited collections published with Hart. In addition to her academic work, Róisín maintains a private practice at the Irish bar advising commercial and state clients on issues of EU law, privacy and data protection as well public law more generally.
Scholarship
Monographs
“The Data Protection Acts and the GDPR: A Commentary” (Bloomsbury, 2025) co-authored with James Kneale BL and Seán Hurley BL
“Law in Irish Literature: Critical Approaches to Institutions, Power and Identity” (Edinburgh University Press, 2026)
“Privacy Law in Ireland” (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Edited Books
Róisín Á Costello and Mark Leiser eds, “Critical Reflections on the EU’s Data Protection Regime” (Hart, 2024)
Celeste, Costello, Harbinja & Xanthoulis eds “Data Protection After Brexit: Reflections from the UK and Ireland” (Hart, 2023)
Book Chapters
“Reserve and Revelation: Modern Conceptions of Privacy in the novels of Jane Austen” in Patrick O’Callaghan and Paolo Astorri eds, “Privacy Before the Right to Privacy: Past as a Prologue to a Technological Future” (Forthcoming, 2027)
“Law as Spectre in ‘The Giant O’Brien’” in Marco Man Ho Wan eds, “Cambridge Handbook of Law, Literature and Colonialism” (Cambridge University Press, 2025)
“Deepfakes and Digital Trust: Authenticating Open Source Evidence” in Richard H Steinberg eds The International Criminal Court: Legal, Policy and Political Challenges (Brill, 2025)
“Irish Language Rights and the Courts of Justice Act 1924” in Niamh Howlin eds, “The Courts of Justice Act 1924” (Four Courts Press, 2024), co-authored with Ms Justice Úna Ní Raifeartaigh
“The Expanding Margins of Privacy in the 21st Century” in Andelka Phillips eds, “Future Frontiers: Technologies, Law, and Society” (Edinburgh University Press, 2024)
“Brian Merriman” in Eric Falci eds, “The Cambridge History of Irish Poetry” (Cambridge University Press, 2024)
“Irish Language Rights under the 1922 Constitution: Symbolism and Substance” in Laura Cahillane and Dónal Coffey eds “The 1922 Constitution” (Palgrave, 2023)
“The Brussels Effect: Regulatory Standard-Setting and Constitutional Conflicts in Post-Brexit Privacy Law" in Celeste et al eds “Data Protection After Brexit: Reflections from the UK and Ireland” (Hart, 2023)
“Constructing a Non-Popular Populism: Freedom of Expression and Democratic Discourse Online” in Moyano et al eds “Transatlantic Crises of Democracy: Cultural Approaches” (University of Sao Paulo Press, 2023)
Recent Peer Reviewed Publications
“Ireland (mostly) at The Bar” Dublin University Law Journal (Forthcoming, 2025)
“Unreasonable and Impracticable: Interrogating the scope of the State’s duty to facilitate legal proceedings in the Irish language” Just. Journal of Language Rights & Minorities (Forthcoming, 2025)
“Anglophone Presumptions in the Courtrooms of Wales and the Republic of Ireland: Some Initial Thoughts on Achieving Language-neutral Courtrooms” Revista de Llengua I Dret (2025) (co-authored with Dr Catrin Fflur Huws)
“Subsequent Legal Developments and Admissibility of Evidence: DPP v Smyth [2024] IESC 22” (2024) Irish Supreme Court Review (co-authored with Liz Heffernan)
“The Test in Kelly v Hennessy and Article 82(1) GDPR” (2024) 8(2) Irish Judicial Studies Journal 22
“McGee v Attorney General: The Beginning (and the End?) of Patriarchal Privacy in Irish Law” Dublin University Law Journal (2024)
“A Computer’s Body and Its Soul: Search and Seizure of Digital Devices Following DPP v Quirke” Irish Jurist (2024)
“The Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022 and compliance with the European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages” 74 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly (2024) 68
“Subjectivity, Complicity and the Colonial Force of Law in the Courtroom of Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies” Law and Literature (2023)
“Faux Ami? Interrogating the Normative Coherence of Digital Constitutionalism” Global Constitutionalism (2023) 1.
“Citizenship, Identity and Veiling: Interrogating the Limits of Article 8 ECHR in Cases Involving the Religious Dress of Muslim Women” 38(1) Journal of Law and Religion (2023) 81 (with Dr Sahar Ahmed)