Rejecting the competing positions of Swadling and Chambers, this article argues that the law of presumed resulting trusts reflects a very old rule that, upon a voluntary transfer, the fate of the beneficial interest in the property depends on the intention of the transferor. The case law shows that the presumption is of an intention to create a trust for the transferor or provider of the purchase money. It makes no difference if, reflecting the historically important concept of “retention”, this is phrased in negative terms as a presumption that the intention of the transferor was not to pass the beneficial interest to the transferee.

Long doubted, the existence of Pleistocene rock art in North Africa is here proven through the dating of petroglyph panels displaying aurochs and other animals at Qurta in the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley. The method used was optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) applied to deposits of wind-blown sediment covering the images. This gave a minimum age of ~15 000 calendar years making the rock engravings at Qurta the oldest so far found in North Africa.

This paper considers the possible reform of the law governing property rights upon the termination of a close personal relationship, taking as its point of departure the Law Commission's Discussion Paper on Home-Sharing (2002). Having considered the reasons for the inconclusive outcome of the Law Commission's project (and the Discussion Paper's comments on the law of trusts), the paper moves on to consider the possible shape of future reform. It examines first the preliminary question of whether possible legislation should focus on unmarried cohabitees or whether a wider range of relationships should be encompassed (with or without a cohabitation requirement), The paper then looks at the form which a legislative scheme might take, examining the possibility of focusing on contributions (along the lines of New South Wales’ legislation) and the Law Society's proposals for a regime based on‘economic advantage and disadvantage’. The experience of the courts in the matrimonial context is considered with a view to extracting relevant lessons. In general, rather defending one particular model for reform, the paper attempts to identify and explore key issues which will be of relevance across a variety of approaches to reform.

This article addresses the question of electronic access to legal resources in Ireland, with special reference to the British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) project. The first section of the article explains the origins of BAILII and the Irish resources which it makes available without charge on the web (as well discussing as other free websites). The second section considers official sources of access to Irish legal material (i.e. government sites), while a final section outlines the commercial services currently on offer. An Appendix provides some “Notes on Using BAILII.”

In a series of modern cases, the English Courts have struggled with the problem of the undue influence or misrepresentation of third parties. Most of the cases have concerned women who have been persuaded or deceived into giving guarantees to financial institutions for the business debts of their sexual partners. In the recent case of Barclays Bank p.I.e. v. O'Brien, * the House of Lords made a fresh effort to tackle this difficult issue. Lord Browne-Wilkinson, with whom the other Lords agreed, attempted “to restate the law in a form which is principled, reflects the current requirements of society and provides as much certainty as possible.”1