When people imagine early Irish law, they usually picture the brithem — the brehon — weighing evidence and handing down a careful judgement based on precedent. That's true enough for…
There's a passage that turns up in a lot of anthologies of Irish myth, usually just a page or two, that starts with a strange young man walking up to the King of Tara carrying a branch of silver with three golden apples on it...
Imagine a political idea so old and so serious that a king who told a lie could, in theory, cause the harvest to fail.
A guide to the principles of Ireland's ancient legal tradition, told through myth and legend. The Demise of the Brehon Laws? Sir John Davies wrote the following in a treatise…