Date Friday 17th April 2026
Time 17h00 - 19h00
Location TRiSS Seminar Room, Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin
Registration

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Professor Tomkins will speak about the making of the Enlightenment constitution, and its subsequent failure in the face of democratic and, later, populist ideals. The seminar will focus on Professor Tomkins’ research on enlightenment constitutionalism as part of which he argues that democracy must be put in its constitutional place, and that this is a task for a newly revived Enlightened constitutionalism. Swift, unlike Hume, Blackstone and Burke, was not a figure of the Enlightenment but pre-figured it. Through Swift’s writings, Professor Tomkins argues that we can approach the question of what an Enlightened constitutionalism looks like. The seminar will focus on Gulliver's Travels (1726), placing what it suggests about constitutional law and politics in the context of a number of Swift's earlier works and political pamphlets, including the Battle of the Books (published 1704 but written in the 1690s), a Discourse of Contests and Dissensions (1701), and the Conduct of the Allies (1711) and draws links between Swift and Bolingbroke, looking forward to Hume. 

 

About Professor Tomkins

Professor Tomkins is the John Millar Professor of Public Law in 2003 at the School of Law at University of Glasgow. Professor Tomkins previously taught at St Catherine’s College, University of Oxford (2000-03) and at King’s College London (1991-2000). He specialises in constitutional law and also writes about British constitutional history and about the history of constitutional ideas. His latest book, On the Law of Speaking Freely, was published in May 2025 by Hart.