Brehon law in the pre-Norman period seems to have been fairly uniform throughout the whole country. The law texts come from different parts of the country and, although there are minor divergences, in general the system seems to have been very much the same.

Q: - Tell me about the intellectual roots of Brehon law - where did they get their sources from?

Brehon law goes back to common Celtic law and a lot of the basic legal concepts are also to be found in medieval Welsh law texts, in Breton texts, and in texts from Scotland. When we come to the Irish situation we find that the seventh / eighth century texts which we have, have a great deal of influence from Canon law. Obviously the church was an enormous influence on the legal system and in many respects the Early Irish law goes back directly word-for-word with sections of Canon law.

Brehon law was rather inward-looking and was not influenced to any great degree by outside legal systems. To some extent, the Anglo-Norman legal system did influence Brehon law in its later stages and in some texts we get a certain amount of phraseology from Anglo-Norman law but, in general, it was a stand-alone system going back to, in fact, to pre-Christian times in Ireland.