Brehon Law

Brehon law is the usual term for Irish native law, as practised in Ireland until the seventeenth century, and in fact amongst the native Irish until the final English conquest. It derives its name from the Irish word Breitheamh (pronounced Brehoon or Brehon) which means a judge.

After much laborious work in the libraries of Trinity College Dublin, the Royal Irish Academy, the British Museum, and the Bodleian Library at Oxford, Irish scholars Eugene O'Curry and John O'Donovan transcribed 17 volumes of the Brehon Laws containing a total of 5397 pages. There are many more Brehon documents still untranscribed in these and other repositories.

The first two volumes contain the Seanchus Mór (Shanahus More) or "Great Immemorial Custom" and the Law of Distress. The second volume contains the Law of Hostage Sureties, the laws of fosterage, tenure of stock, and social connections. The third volume contains the Book of Acaill, which is mainly concerned with torts and injuries. This book is thought to be a compilation of the pronouncements and judgments of King Cormac Mac Airt who lived in the third century, and of Cennfaeladh, a famous warrior who lived in the seventh century, who became a renowned jurist. The fourth and fifth volumes deal with taking possession, tenancy, the right of water, divisions of land, social ranks, the laws covering poets and their verse, the Church, chiefs, husbandmen, pledges, and renewals of covenants.

These tracts go under the generic name of the Brehon Laws, but they are not codes of law. They are the compilations of generations of learned lawyers. The text of the Seanchus Mór relating to the law of immediate seizure is estimated to have been written before the year 600 and after the introduction of Christianity into Ireland in the third century.

The year 438 is given by the Irish annalists for the Seanchus Mór, which was the joint effort of three kings, two clerics, a doctor of the Bérla Féine [legal dialect], Dubhthach [a doctor of literature], Fergus [a doctor of poetry], and of St. Patrick himself, who struck out of it all that "clashed with the law of God". It is impossible to say how ancient the laws may have been before they were put into writing.

The Brehons had absolute responsibility for the interpretation of the laws and the application of them to individual cases. Those attached to chiefs had free lands, which, like the profession itself, remained in the same family for generations. Those not attached lived on the fees they earned, and many became wealthy.

The legal rules were very complicated and used a variety of' technical terms so that no outsider could hope to master their intricacies. Many forms had to be followed and many circumstances taken into account, all of which were legally essential. The Brehon had to be very careful because he was liable for damages, besides forfeiting his fee, if he delivered a false or unjust judgement.

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