HISTORY OF LAND TENURE IN IRELAND

A Note on the Brehons (Judges)

Brehons

According to Campion (1571), (referred to in Kelly, 1988) training of Brehons (like physicians) began as children and continued for 16 or 20 years: and included the learning by heart of massive amounts of laws. Like the other professions, the legal tradition passed down through particular families. These laws, like other learning, were devised in verse form, or other easily remembered form such as cryptic sayings, triads or heptads.

The Brehons were an off-shoot from the Filí, or Poets. It was,apparently, the poets who composed the text of the laws. Apparently no new laws were composed after the 10th century, the later texts purporting to transmit the authentic contents of the 8th to 9th century texts, but adding glosses and commentaries on the texts.

Stone Age to Iron Age Celtic Ireland The Brehon Laws
Brehon-law Land Tenure Norse and Normans English Land Law in Ireland
The Land War and Reforms Land Regulation Return to Killeens Home Page
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