ProfessorOonagh Breen

Dr. Oonagh B. Breen is a Professor of Law at the Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin (UCD), a Law Reform Commissioner, and an internationally recognized expert in NGO law, governance, and comparative charity regulation. A graduate of UCD (BCL ’92, LLM ’95) and Yale Law School (LLM ’04, JSD ’06) as a Lillian Goldman Scholar, she was called to the Irish Bar in 1997. Her research bridges academic theory and policy reform, focusing on state-nonprofit partnerships and regulatory frameworks.

Her leadership includes chairing the Independent Review of Charity Regulation in Northern Ireland (2021–2022), leading to a landmark reform report accepted by the Department for Communities. Appointed as a Commissioner to the Irish Law Reform Commission in October 2025, she has also served as President of the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) (2021–2023) and Chair of the International Centre for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL).

Professor Breen is the co-author of Law of Charities in Ireland (Bloomsbury Professional, 2019)—the leading text on Irish charity law—and co-editor of Regulatory Waves: Comparative Perspectives on State Regulation and Self-Regulation Policies in the Nonprofit Sector (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Her honors include Fulbright and Government of Ireland Fellowships, research fellowships at Harvard’s Hauser Center (2009), QUT (2016) and Carleton University (2025), an ICNL/CORDAID Distinguished Research Award, and the UCD President’s Award for Teaching and Learning (2008 and 2025). She has held visiting appointments across the US, Canada, and New Zealand, and served for nearly two decades as External Examiner in Equity for the Law Society of Ireland. In 2026, she was appointed to the Royal Irish Academy’s Ethics, Politics, Law & Philosophy Committee.