CCIV20120

Learning Outcomes:

1. familiarity with the legal tradition in medieval Ireland (c. 700 - 1700 CE).
2. basic knowledge of the textual sources of early Irish law and aspects of the society regulated by legal institutions.
3. deeper understanding of how early Irish society functioned in everyday life.

Indicative Module Content:

Week 1 Introduction
Week 1 The social and political environment
Week 2 The history of early Irish law texts
Week 2 Judges and jurists
Week 3 Types of law texts
Week 3 Legal manuscripts, their format, contents, characteristics
Week 4 late medieval legal families
Week 4 The later fate of early Irish law
Week 5 Main features of dispute settlement in early Ireland
Week 5 1st discussion and research-skill
Week 6 Law of status: Críth Gablach (I)
Week 6 Law of status: Críth Gablach (II)
Week 7 Marriage
Week 7 children
Week 8 Status of women
Week 8 kinship structure
Week 9 Law of contract
Week 9 Law of tort
Week 10 Sick-maintenance and medicine
Week 10 Living with your neighbours
Week 11 Bechbretha (This may be cancelled because of the Easter holiday)
Week 11 Procedures
Week 12 Law and literature
Week 12 summary and 2nd discussion

Student Effort Hours:

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:

Learning will mostly take the form of structured lectures, supported by group discussion and on-line resources.

Please note that you must NOT submit contents generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies as part of your assignment, assessment or thesis submitted to this module or degree.

This falls in line with the ‘RED’ category of the College of A&H’s ‘AI traffic light’ system. Further information on the traffic light system is on the College AI Futures website.

Apart from contents directly generated by AI, uses of AI technologies in the following fields are also not permitted in any assignment, assessment or thesis:

Correction: Correct spelling, grammar and punctuation
Translation: Translate passages of text
Citation: Arrange references according to a particular citation style
Improvement: Improve the style and tone of writing
Feedback: Get feedback on drafts
Unpacking: Unpack an assignment prompt to better understand it
Brainstorming: Brainstorm a topic to gather a range of approaches
Planning: Generate a research plan
Structuring: Devise a structure for a piece of writing based on an abstract, introduction, or general ideas
Revision: Revise a piece of writing

If you submit AI-generated content you may be in breach of the UCD Academic Integrity Policy.
If you are not sure whether your submission conforms to the school policy, please consult your module coordinator.

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.

Module Requisites and Incompatibles

Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy

 

Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Not yet recorded.

Ahlqvist, Anders, and Pamela O’Neill, eds. Medieval Irish Law: Text and Context. Sydney Series in Celtic Studies 12. Sydney: The University of Sydney, 2013.
Binchy, D. A. The Linguistic and Historical Value of the Irish Law Tracts. Proceedings of the British Academy 29. London: H. Milford, 1943.
Binchy, D. A. ‘The Date and Provenance of Uraicecht Becc’. Ériu 18 (1958): 44–54.
Binchy, D. A. ‘Distraint in Irish Law’. Celtica 10 (1973): 22–71.
Breatnach, Liam. ‘Canon Law and Secular Law in Early Ireland: The Significance of Bretha Nemed’. Peritia 3 (1984): 439–59.
Breatnach, Liam. ‘Lawyers in Early Ireland’. In Brehons, Serjeants and Attorneys: Studies in the History of the Irish Legal Profession, edited by Daire Hogan and W. N. Osborough, 1–13. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1990.
Breatnach, Liam. A Companion to the Corpus Iuris Hibernici. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2005.
Breatnach, Liam. ‘Law and Literature in Early Mediaeval Ireland’. In L’Irlanda e Gli Irlandesi Nell’alto Medioevo: Spoleto, 16-21, 215–38. Spoleto: Presso la Sede della Fondazione, 2010.
Breatnach, Liam. The Early Irish Law Text Senchas Már and the Question of Its Date. E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures 13. Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic, 2011.
Breatnach, Liam. ‘The Glossing of the Early Irish Law Tracts’. In Grammatica, Gramadach and Gramadeg: Vernacular Grammar and Grammarians in Medieval Ireland and Wales, edited by Deborah Hayden and Paul Russell, 113–32. Studies in the History of the Language Science 125. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing, 2016.
Carey, John. ‘An Edition of the Pseudo-Historical Prologue to the Senchas Már’. Ériu 45 (1994): 1–32.
Charles-Edwards, T. M. ‘Early Irish Law’. In Ó Cróinín, Dáibhí (Ed.), A New History of Ireland, Vol. 1, Prehistoric & Early Medieval Ireland, 331–70. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Davies, Wendy. ‘Charter-Writing and Its Uses in Early Medieval Celtic Societies’. In Pryce, Huw (Ed.), Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies, 99–112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Gerriets, Marilyn. ‘The King as Judge in Early Ireland’. Celtica 20 (1988): 29–52.
Kelly, Fergus. A Guide to Early Irish Law. Early Irish Law Series 3. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1988.
Kelly, Fergus. Early Irish Farming. Early Irish Law Series, v. 4. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1997.
Kelly, Fergus. ‘Texts and Transmissions: The Law-Texts’. In Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: Texts and Transmissions = Irland Und Europa Im Früheren Mittelalteren: Texte Und Überlieferung, edited by Próinséas Ní Chatháin and Michael Richter, 230–42. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh. ‘Marriage in Early Ireland’. In Marriage in Ireland, edited by Art Cosgrove, 5–24. Dublin: College Press, 1985.
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh, Liam Breatnach, and Aidan Breen. ‘The Laws of the Irish’. Peritia 3 (1984): 382–438.
Patterson, Nerys. ‘Brehon Law in Late Medieval Ireland: “Antiquarian and Obsolete” or “Traditional and Functional”?’ Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 17 (1989): 43–63.
Qiu, Fangzhe. ‘Narratives in Early Irish Law: A Typological Study’. In Medieval Irish Law: Texts and Contexts, edited by Anders Ahlqvist and Pamela O’Neill, 111–41. Sydney: The University of Sydney, 2013.
Qiu, Fangzhe. ‘Manuscript Contexts of Early Irish Law Tracts: A Case Study on Uraicecht Becc’. Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 35 (2015): 150–71.
Sharpe, Richard. ‘Dispute Settlement in Medieval Ireland: A Preliminary Inquiry’. In Davies, Wendy and Paul Fouracre Eds., The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe, 169–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.