Brehon lawyers

The first instructive fact which strikes us on the threshold of the Brehon law is, that the same word, ‘Fine,’ or Family, is applied to all the subdivisions of Irish society.

It is perfectly true that the form of private ownership in land which grew out of the appropriation of portions of the tribal domain to individual households of tribesmen is plainly recognised by the Brehon lawyers;

Let me add that all the Brehon writers seem to me to have a bias towards private or several, as distinguished from collective, property.

All we can say with confidence is—and this is an important proposition—that the Irish Brehon lawyers regarded the mode of bringing of a defendant into Court as the legal topic which rightfully and naturally took precedence of all others.

All the learning and ingenuity of the contributing Brehon lawyers are bestowed on defining the rules by which adversaries may be brought under the control of the institution, which the Roman and Hindu Codes assume to have been long since in existence and long since in active and regular operation.