Ireland is different in very many ways from the other areas treated in this volume. That is not to say that it was isolated in the middle ages, or that its differences make comparisons an unprofitable study. Far from it – some of the differences are more apparent than real, and arise from the habit of assuming that Ireland is different in all respects, and that its history can be studied without regard to the interests of historians elsewhere. Conversely historians of England and Europe have often been indifferent to matters Irish (or, for that matter, Welsh or Scottish), so that where Carolingians are familiar territory, Uí Néill or Dál Cais have always to be explained. Scholars approaching Irish history and law from philology have devoted more study to archaic aspects of troscad (distraint by ritualized fasting) with its Indian parallels, though it was of very limited significance in the historic period, than to the nature and functions of the airecht, hesitantly translated ‘court’, an institution of central importance to the functioning of law in society. The absence of any corrective interest from historians has allowed this approach to go unchecked. Some refocusing of attention is desirable, away from the search for ‘primitive western institutions’, and on to the operation of the law in seventh- and eighth-century Ireland.

Nonetheless, Ireland is different from continental Europe. In considering procedure for dispute settlement, the two most important differences are these. Ireland lay outside the area of Romanitas as it is relevant to the legal historian.