The Brehon Laws. A Legal Handbook. London: Unwin, 1894. First Edition. Pp vii, 249, uncut. Publisher’s black cloth boards lettered in gilt, spotting to endpapers, contents generally in nice condition.

The beginning of the 17th century saw English law and rule prevail in Ireland and the Irish laws outlawed and declared barbarous.  These ancient ‘barbarous’ laws of Ireland have since been recognised as the most advanced system of jurisprudence in the ancient world, a system under which the doctrine of the equality of man (including equality between men and women) was understood and under which a deeply humane and cultured society flourished. These ancient Irish laws have come to be called The Brehon Laws from the Irish term ‘Brehon’ which was applied to the official lawgiver. 

Laurence Ginnell (1854-1923) was an Irish nationalist politician and lawyer and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of Great Britain and Ireland. He was a member, at different times, of the Irish Parliamentary Party, the Independent Nationalists and Sinn Fein. The last social and agrarian campaign of the home rule movement, the Ranch War (1906 and 1909), was largely led and organised by Ginnell. He was a staunch opponent of the Anglo-Irish Treaty that was ratified in 1922.