Brehon Laws: The Ancient Wisdom of Ireland

In early Irish law, a dispute over land, an injury, a marriage or even damage to a tree could raise questions about rights and compensation. These rules survive through a legal tradition associated with the brehons, specialists who interpreted laws governing relationships within communities.

Jo Kerrigan explores what these texts suggest about everyday life, from property and status to animals, families and the treatment of wrongdoing. Richard Mills’ photographs accompany the discussion. The laws reach us through manuscripts and later scholarship, preserving legal expectations and disputes from a changing society. They show how relationships were regulated and contested, without providing a single, seamless picture of how Irish communities lived.