The Brehon Laws. They were just a casual mention in an Irish historical novel, but the reference gave me pause. I had been practicing law for almost 40 years and had never heard of them. Modern woman that I am, I googled them. What I found was that before St Patrick and before English domination, the pagan Irish had a vital, humane, and highly structured society that revered social harmony, and they had developed a comprehensive legal system that was surprisingly progressive. Laws that we think of as utterly modern, like property rights for women, trial marriages, no fault divorce, education for all, and restorative justice are just some of the examples. I was hooked. How could I have never heard of them? When I started to research the laws, I found that the available information was mostly contained in scholarly learned treatises that were difficult for even me, as a lawyer, to navigate. It was then I had the idea to write a book that would make these laws available to a wider readership who might share my enthusiasm for this revelation. As I wrote about the laws, I realized that I needed to provide the context of the society that developed them, so I expanded the content to explain the society as well as the spiritual beliefs that underscored the development of this humane legal system.

After I retired, I was able to devote more of my time to the manuscript but I realized I needed help to make the subject matter more accessible to a general readership. After all I had been writing like a lawyer for more than four decades and we tend to be very direct and concise. Despite taking several nonfiction writing seminars, the lawyer kept coming through. Ultimately I knew I needed a real editor. The wonderful editor that I hired had me put more meat on the bones of my spare legal writing, and then she had me add more of my own commentary based upon my legal knowledge and experience. She also helped me break down the material into more digestible segments. I am very happy with the results. I am now seeking a literary agent to publish the book, and that requires another whole set of submissions I have underway.

In the meantime, I want to share what I have learned by way of this blog. I hope to post interesting tidbits that will stimulate discussion and further exploration into this new understanding of ancient Irish wisdom; Seanchus.