Laws
Judges were called brehons; and the law they administered is, therefore, now commonly known as the ” Brehon Law.”* To become a brehon a person had to go through a regular, well-defined course oftraining. The brehons were a very influential class of men, and those attached to chiefs had free lands for their maintenance. Those not so attached lived simply on the fees of their profession. It generally required great technical skill to decide cases, the legal rules, as set forth in the law-books, were so complicated, and so many circumstances had to be taken into account. The brehon, moreover, had to be very careful, for he was himself liable to damages if he delivered a false or an unjust judgment.
* The proper designation for native Irish law is “fenechas.”
The brehons had collections of laws in volumes or tracts by which they regulated their judgments. Many of these have been preserved, and of late years the most important of them have been published with translations, forming five printed volumes. Of the tracts contained in these volumes the two largest and most important are the Seanchus M6r (Shan a-hus M6re) and the Book of Acaill (Ack ill). The Seanchus M6r is chiefly concerned with the Irish civil law, and the Book of Acaillwith the criminal law and the law relating to personal injuries. At the request of St. Patrick, Laoghaire (Leary), the Ard-Rf, is said to have formed a committee of nine persons to revise the laws—three kings, three ecclesiastics, and three poets and antiquarians. These nine having expunged everything that clashed with the Christian faith, produced at the end of three years a revised code which was called Seanchus M6r. The very book left by St. Patrick and the others has been long lost. Successive copies were made from time to time, with commentaries and explanations appended, till the manuscripts we now possess were produced.
The language of the laws is extremely archaic and difficult, indicating a very remote antiquity, though probably not the very language of the text left by the revising committee, but a modified version of a later time. The brehon code forms a great body of civil, military and criminal law. It regulates the various ranks of society from the king down to the slave, and enumerates their several rights and privileges. There are minute rules for the management of property, for the several industries—building, brewing, mills, water-courses, fishing-weirs, bees and honey—for distress or seizure of goods, for tithes, trespass and evidence. The relations of landlord and tenant, the fees of professional men—doctors, judges, teachers, builders, artificers —the mutual duties of father and son, of foster-parents and foster-children, of master and servant, are all carefully regulated. Contracts are regarded as peculiarly sacred, and are treated in great detail.
In criminal law the various offences are minutely distinguished—murder, manslaughter, wounding, thefts, and every variety of wilful damage ; and accidental injuries from flails, sledge-hammers, and all sorts of weapons. Injuries of all kinds as between man and man were atoned for by a compensation payment. Homicide, whether by intent or by misadventure, was atoned for like other injuries by a money fine. The fine for homicide or for bodily injury of any kind was called eric (er rick): the amount was adjudged by a brehon. The principles on which these awards should be made are laid down in great detail in the Book of Acaill.
In case of homicide the fine of the victim were entitled to the eric. If the culprit did not pay, or absconded, leaving no property, his fine were liable. If they wished to avoid this they were required to give up the offender to the family of the victim, who might then if they pleased kill him : or failing this his family had to expel him, and to lodge a sum to free themselves from the consequences of his subsequent misconduct.
In the Book of Acaill there is a minute enumeration of bodily injuries, whether by design or accident, with the compensation for each, taking into account the position of the parties and the other numerous circumstances that modified the amount.
The ” Brehon Laws ” were not a code of laws in the modern sense. They were mostly the decisions and opinions of celebrated lawyers on definite issues which came before them. When collected in a comprehensive form these formed a complete set of authoritative decisions upon nearly every question that could arise. There was not any legislative body to draft and adopt new laws in the modern fashion. But the collected decisions of the brehons were accepted in all parts of Ireland, and they formed a recognised system of law for the entire island.
