143 
as Closely as possible adhered, he offers his opinions with confidence, 
and courts the investigation of the candid and intelligent. 
To those who deny, that the ancient Irish had written laws, the 
best answer, perhaps, that could be given, would be a reference to 
the documents in which they are to be found; or to the extracts from 
those documents exhibited in the following pages. It may not, 
however, be improper to observe, that, if even these ancient monu- 
ments did not now exist, it would not amount to a proof that such 
have not existed in former times; and, if even the Irish had not any 
written laws at an early period, still it would not be a sufficient 
proof that the natives were a lawless race, and a nation of barbarians, 
which seems to be what was intended by those who have asserted that 
they had not any writfen law. If the absence of written law in a 
nation were a proof of barbarism, the Athenians must have been 
barbarians; for they had not any such laws for the long period of 
one thousand years, until at length they received them from Draco, 
in the first year of the 139th Olympiad (A. M. 3326), a hundred 
years after the period at which our monarch, Ollamh Fodhla, 
(Olav Folla) promulgated his code, for the better government and 
improvement of his people. The same argument would also hold 
good against the English themselves, whose common law remained 
unwritten for ages, although by it their country was governed, and 
justice administered, long before the existence of statute laws; and 
by it, even at the present day, innumerable important controversies 
are decided. . 
But that the Irish were not without laws, and even written laws, 
at a very early period, the concurrent testimony of some of the most 
respectable writers of English birth, or descent, as well as of many of 
our native writers, shall be hereafter submitted to the consideration of 
the candid reader; and if it shall appear, that the Irish have had 
VOL. XIV. x 
