Daniel Kirkpatrick

Nelson Mandela famously said that: “A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones”. In other words, we should judge a society (whether past or present) by the quality of its approach to justice. Without it, anarchy reigns. Justice is a slippery concept to grasp, and we remain far from perfect today. But the ancient Irish had an unusually progressive legal system, far ahead of its time, and one we can learn from even today – the ancient Irish Brehon Laws.

In this post we will consider the origins, breadth, and application of the Brehon laws. We will look at who the ancient Brehons were, what social customs did the laws uphold, and compare this with other ancient legal traditions. Together this will reveal a legal system which was well ahead of its time, balancing the honour/shame culture of the time with legal restitution and restoration, to create a society that managed to survive free from any of our modern law enforcement or penal institutions.

How the Brehon Laws Began: Ireland’s Earliest Justice System

Written in the 7th century, this legal system almost certainly reflects customary oral traditions which date back well into the Iron Age, if not before. For instance, a leading scholar on the subject explained:

“It is interesting to note that some of the rules laid down in these texts are reflected in native Irish writings, including myths and sagas, illustrating their practice and acceptance in early Irish society.”¹

In fact, long before the introduction of English common law, Ireland was governed by these Brehon Laws, one of Europe’s most unique and sophisticated legal systems. Around 650 AD, monastic scribes fixed these oral codes in writing—chiefly in the Senchas Már—while melding older Celtic customs with emerging Christian values.

These ancient laws were named after the brehons (judges or legal arbitrators). They were deeply rooted in Irish society, reflecting its communal values, respect for nature, and emphasis on restorative justice. Its survival for centuries, even under external pressures, underscores its practicality and versatility. To understand, we need to first understand the system itself.

Honour and Shame: The Moral Core of Brehon Justice

Unlike the centralised legal systems of today, the ancient Irish Brehon Laws operated as a decentralised network of legal traditions. It was communicated orally and later written down in texts like the Senchas Már. There were no prisons or police in early Irish society; instead, justice relied on restitution and community enforcement. Penalties for offenses, from theft to injury, were resolved by compensation. This was typically measured in the form of livestock or goods—paid directly to the victim.

In ‘honour/shame’ cultures such as ancient Ireland, compensation was considered an ‘honour price’ or literally “the price of the face”.² In other words, crimes were understood in terms of the shame or dishonour brought about which had to be restored. This is why some punishments and forms of restitution may seem strange to us today. But it’s crucial to understand that the ancient Irish would have seen justice in terms of this loss of face. For instance, satire or refusal of hospitality were considered serious offences.³

This approach was profoundly communal. Offenders and their families bore the responsibility of restitution, ensuring accountability within a network of mutual obligations. However, all were not treated as equal before the law: “a person of high rank was entitled to a greater payment in compensation than someone of lower rank.”⁴ We may initially see such inequality as highly archaic. But I’d argue that it was at least transparent about the power structures, so everyone understood where they stood before such obligations. Our system today, with its inconsistencies and inequalities due to wealth or politics, is perhaps less progressive in comparison.

Types of Ancient Irish Brehon Laws

What Did the Brehon Laws Govern?

The Brehon Laws covered nearly every aspect of life, from personal relationships to environmental stewardship, from sportsmanship to beekeeping.⁵ But it’s worth considering a few key examples to understand the depth, sophistication, and practices that underpinned these within ancient Ireland. The first area of note is one we all revile, yet is central to principles of fairness – debt.

Property and Debt

In nearly all aspects of life, debt is an unspoken obligation which we accept without even noticing. You go to a shop and you recognise that there’s a debt owed for anything you take. When you work or provide a service, you expect something in return. If you’re robbed or cheated, you expect some recompense to repay the harm. But where debt for us is almost always reduced to money – an indication of what we value and how we attribute value – for barter and exchange societies like that of ancient Ireland, debt was much more nuanced.

Cattle and other livestock were a common measure of value. The greater the debt the more valuable and greater number of livestock owed. This was determined by the harm caused (honour price), the status of the accused and accuser, and the circumstances surrounding the case.

In many respects, this will sound very familiar to us today – it should. For the practices were remarkably progressive and pragmatic. Debts could be delayed for a period rather than called in immediately. Those without property couldn’t be expected to pay a debt. Defendants could make pledges to delay judgement while they gathered evidence (much like bail today).⁶ I need not go on, except to say that principles of Brehon law showed just how central fairness, due process, and objectivity were providing a level of legal certainty in a time when the rest of Europe was grappling with the Dark Ages.

Restorative Justice and Capital Punishment

In a time of history which we often characterise as brutal and primitive, the Irish provided for crimes – even murder – to be resolved through compensation. In a culture we focuses on the punitive response to crimes – punishing the perpetrators – this may feel strange, even immoral; that perpetrators are getting away with their crime. But this is because the Irish law was grounded in principles of restoration to the victim rather than punishing the perpetrator – restorative rather than retributive justice.

Consider today where you have a relative murdered, the consequence is that the perpetrator goes to prison to serve a sentence but the victim goes home with nothing. If this were a spouse with children, there’s no support to help them manage the loss. Whereas in ancient Ireland, the perpetrator would have to pay a significant debt and would face social shame along with it.⁷ These are themes I’ve separately explored in my short story, The Freedom of Peace.

Of course, this doesn’t mean capital punishment didn’t exist – it did. Only that the Irish understood justice should not be reduced to the punishment, but also to addressing the harm caused.

Marriage and Divorce

Our concept of family again leads to the wrong assumptions when it comes to ancient Ireland, not least with regards to marriage. Marriage was not seen as a single practice nor a definitive one. Formal unions did obviously take place but these appear more akin to economic and political agreements where a marriage is arranged to solidify. More generally, however “the marriage relation was extremely loose, and divorce was as easy.”⁸ If a wife divorced her husband, she kept whatever property she brought into the marriage – thereby protecting her financial security and that of her family to whom she’d return.

Much has been said of how this empowered woman, and indicates an early Irish feminist tradition, but we need to be careful drawing too much from this. For this may be missing the historical context, for property was not considered in our modern individualistic way, but communally. Therefore, for a wife to retain her property was likely to protect the wealth and security of her clan, not merely herself. That said, when compared to other ancient historical contexts of the time, this suggests Irish woman held a much more equitable status with men than those in other cultures. Albeit not perhaps to the extent often portrayed by modern commentators.

Who Were the Brehons? Ireland’s Ancient Legal Experts

At the time of the Brehon laws, they were almost certainly arbitrated through the professional legal class of the Brehons. These practitioners stood apart from the bards and druids, and would have required a considerable period of training, pupilage and recognition. Like most professions of the time, it would have been mainly hereditary, not because of nepotism or the secrecy which may have been the case with druids, but because of the simple practicalities and practices of ancient society.

In a world without formal education (bar notable exceptions), training was managed by parents who passed down their skills to their children. Simply consider the many common surnames today which are relics of this ancient practice: the Bakers, Masons, Carpenter, or Miller.

However, given that much of the legal practices of the Brehon Laws were likely practiced much earlier, it’s very likely the druids would have had a role in legal practice before Christianity came to Ireland. Indeed, much of St. Patrick’s writings imply their primacy in the political and social fabric of Ireland, to such an extent it is difficult to conceive of them not being legal arbitrators too.

Comparing the Brehon Laws with other Ancient Legal Traditions

Unlike most early codes, the Brehon Laws placed victims, not the state, at the centre of justice. Such restorative logic differs sharply from the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 BCE), which carved a top-down, retributive lex talionis on a basalt stele: “eye for eye” for equals, but harsher penalties for slaves. While both systems graded offences by social rank, Hammurabi measured worth in fixed bodily retaliation or death, whereas Brehon practice translated worth into compensatory value, preserving the offender’s labour within the community.

The Twelve Tables of Rome (450 BCE) began as a plebeian demand for transparency, posting bronze tablets in the Forum. Like the Brehon texts, they emerged from an oral past; unlike them, they mixed restitution with state sanctions such as exile and enslavement. Rome emphasised public order under magistrates, whereas Irish jurisprudence remained decentralised, enforced by kin-groups and itinerant brehons.

Mosaic Law in the Torah combines moral, ritual and civil provisions. It, too, balances restitution (e.g., double repayment for theft) with corporal and capital sentences commanded by a theocratic authority. Though Brehon courts acknowledged Christian ethics after the fifth century, they kept secular oversight; priests rarely dictated punishment.

Athenian reforms show an evolution from severity to moderation. Draco’s homicide code (621 BCE) famously imposed death for minor crimes, yet Solon’s later reforms replaced many ‘draconian’ penalties with fines and debt relief. Brehon law began where Solon ended: fines as the primary remedy, mitigated by a debtor’s means and the victim’s loss.

Across these traditions, the Brehon Laws stand out for their consistent preference for restitution, environmental provisions and relative flexibility, features that allowed them to survive the various historical phases under the Vikings, Normans and Tudors.

Comparison of ancient legal traditions

Why the Brehon Laws Matter Today?

Justice has today become reduced to such a narrow concept that our prisons are filled to overflowing, our courts cannot handle the demand, and yet crime continues to increase in many areas. To seek justice is assumed as meaning that you seek retribution, to see the perpetrator ‘locked up’ or in some way punished. I’ve no intention of undermining the importance of punishment and the inherent desire to ‘see justice done’. And yet the ancient Irish Brehon laws provide a compelling alternative; a reminder that justice involves not only the perpetrator being punished, but the victim being restored.

I began by quoting Mandela on the quality of criminal justice, but it’s worth balancing this against its limitations too, particularly as we use it as a lens into ancient Ireland. For it is not representative – thankfully so. One scholar writing on the subject put it much more eloquently than I ever could:

“A nation’s law is an irrebuttable witness to its character, a mirror that cannot be disclaimed. We should in justice remember that it is in general an unfavourable witness, an unflattering mirror. It reflects cases, disputes, quarrels, and lends undue importance to the comparatively few members of the population who feature in them, while almost wholly ignoring all the sweetness and goodness of human life.”⁹

Frequently Asked Questions: Brehon Laws & Restorative Justice

1. Higgins, Noelle. “The lost legal system: pre-Common Law Ireland and the Brehon Law.” (2011): 193-205. ↩︎
2. Niall Mac Coitir (2015) Ireland’s Animals: Myths, Legends and Folklore. Collins Press., p12. ↩︎
3. Niall Mac Coitir, p13. ↩︎
4. Ibid. ↩︎
5. Higgins, Noelle. “The lost legal system: pre-Common Law Ireland and the Brehon Law.” (2011): 193-205. ↩︎
6. Ginnell, Laurence. The Brehon laws: A legal handbook. London: TF Unwin, 1894. ↩︎
7. Ibid. ↩︎
8. Ibid., p212. ↩︎
9. Ibid., p246. ↩︎

← Back to Irish History

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

What is the Ogham Tree Alphabet? Etymology of Irish Festivals Etymology of Irish Animal Names: Myth & Language Revealed Ancient Irish Proverbs and their Origins: Wisdom in a few Words Who was St Columba? Missionary, Monk, and Legend of Iona Who was the Irish goddess Brigid? Goddess of Fire & Fertility Corrstown Bronze Age Village: Ireland’s Largest Settlement Who is the Irish mother goddess Dana?