Ireland: Individual and Group Rights in Ancient Irish Law

Considering the excesses that had been committed over eight centuries, the Anglo-Irish rivalry had reached grotesque proportions over time. The English sought to exercise total control over the British Isles, but the Irish consistently opposed it, which gave rise to a mutual antipathy in the collective psyche. Ireland had, before it came under English rule, its own system of law, dating back to Celtic times and existing until the 17th century, when English common law replaced it. This was Brehon Law, consisting of customs passed down orally from one generation to another and administered by the Brehons, the successors of the Celtic Druids. Although similar to judges, the Brehons were more of an arbiter (Katharine Simms, 2000, p. 79) whose task was to preserve and interpret the law rather than to extend it. In the early 17th century, the military victory against Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone was decisive, decisive and represented a first stage in the English domination of Ireland. Political consolidation was achieved by legal means and represented the second stage in the process of English domination. These events led to the legislative reform of the early 17th century.[1]Sir John Davies argued that the eradication of Irish Brehon law was justified by the right of conquest and that Brehon law resembled "a barbarous and indecent custom". [1]Sir John Davies, who studied briefly with Paul Merula at Leyden in the Netherlands, was one of the most important Crown lawyers who worked to reform the Irish administration in the early 17th century. He served as Solicitor General and Attorney General and had a significant influence on Irish law, administration and jurisprudence. His legacy is highlighted in his Irish Law Reports.

The Northern Territory’s Burial and Cremation Bill 2019 has been criticised as a gross form of disrespect to traditional Aboriginal law, with Indigenous people arguing that the Bill criminalises the operation of Aboriginal law on Aboriginal land, and may lead to an increase in already high incarceration rates. Should the law in this area seek to strike a ‘balance’ between Aboriginal law and the policy goals of non-Aboriginal law, including policing and record-keeping; or should Indigenous people be left free to carry out traditional law in an area of great cultural and historical sensitivity?

This volume contains a critical edition of the Old Irish law tract Corus Besgnai(The Arrangement of Discipline), one of the constituent tracts of the late seventh-century compilation Senchas Mar(The Great Tradition). It has taken the editor a very long time to bring this work to completion, but the result is a highly accurate and informative edition representing the highest standard of scholarship in early Irish language and law.

Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life with a deep structure of meaning, suggesting that conflict and change is built into the caste system. As a consequence cultural, religious and linguistic reaffirmation, deeply implanted in the religious and critical consciousness of the people, has been a prerequisite for all major movements of protest against the caste structure and for social and political change. Central to the religious revolutions of Gautama and Mahavira (563–482 B.C. and 522–480 B.C.) was the reality of social and racial conflict, for the fabric of society had to take into account ‘multiplicity of races, religions and languages’. (1) Both Buddhism and Jainism not only attacked the oppressive ritualism of the caste system but waged a sustained campaign against ‘racial prejudice and social discrimination’, (2) relentlessly focusing on the ‘individual rights cutting across caste divisions’. (3) A historical inventory of the Great Hindu Tradition dictates that the ideological content of all major religious movements must address itself to the creation of an open caste society and the religious revolutionaries emerge as mediators between the great tradition and the masses of people. The process of universalization and reaffirmation of cultural consciousness necessitates the creation of sacred centres, sacred institutions and sacred scriptures. The Punjab in the fourteenth century mirrors the great Hindu tradition of conflict, change and liberation, set in motion by the oppressive Muslim invasion in AD 1001, and even a casual analysis of the period will confirm Kosambi’s thesis that ‘Indian society seemed to develop more by successive religious transformation than by violence’. (4) The Hindu and the Islamic land of the five rivers were unable to launch any kind of protest movements for both Hinduism and Islam had abandoned the people and totally depended on ‘external authority and conventional ceremony’ (5) to control and to maintain their oppressive hold over the people. Towards the end of the fourteenth century Ramananda was the first to emerge in Northern India to challenge the Brahminical authority of the caste structure and the oppression of Islam, and attempted to bring men and women of any caste or any faith in direct personal relationship with God through love and ‘bhakti’ (devotion). But it was Kabir, a disciple of Ramananda, the mystic poet and weaver, who revolutionised the whole counter-movement of protest by insisting on using the language of the people and affirming that God is an experience and not a concept and the experience belongs to the people across caste, colour and country. Furthermore, it was the dominating and dogmatic superstructure of Islam and Hinduism which imprisoned the people in a vicious cycle of oppression and dependence on classical authorities. His syncristic appeal across caste and religion of 0 God, whether Allah or Rama, I live by thy name’ (6) was to have a deep political, structural and institutional effect on the rise of Sikhism. The upsurge of anti-caste religious consciousness for structural change with religious equality in the economy of God was an all-India phenomenon. But they failed to make any substantive impact in their offensive for change, and according to Cunningham ‘they perfected forms of dissent rather than planted germs of nations’. (7) In my view, they failed because the concept of ‘bhakti’ was too universal to be able to focus on the oppressive structure of society, and they centred on the charismatic power relationship of the Gurus without political objectives or institutional base to question existing social order.

Common lambsquarters (Chenopodium album L.) is an important weed of maize fields in Iran. In order to study the effect of common lambsquarters relative time of emergence on single-cross 704 maize (Zea mays L.), an experiment was designed with different density levels of the weed. The experimental design was a split plot based on a randomized completed block design with three replications. The emergence time of lambsquarters was considered as main plots with three levels: emergence of the weed 14 days earlier, 7 days earlier than maize and simultaneously with maize. Density of weed was the subplot treatment with six levels: 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 plants per m 2 . The results showed that height and leaf area index of maize decrease with earlier emergence time and increasing density of lambsquarters, so that 14 days earlier emergence of weed at high densities (16 and 20 plants per m 2 ) led to maximum reduction. In contrast, height and LAI of lambsquarters increased with earlier emergence time especially at high densities. Common lambsquarters was a stronger competitor when emerged 14 days earlier than maize. Maize yield decreased more than 70% in the 7 and 14 days earlier emergence of lambsquarters at high density. Totally, it can be state that relative time of weed emergence compare to its density had maximum effect on maize growth. In addition, controlling lambsquarters before maize emerging at any densities is recommend preventing of maize growth and yield loss.

Sea-level rise is a significant indicator of broader climate changes, and the time of emergence concept can be used to identify when modern rates of sea-level rise emerged above background variability. Yet a range of estimates of the timing persists both globally and regionally. Here, we use a global database of proxy sea-level records of the Common Era (0–2000 CE) and show that globally, it is very likely that rates of sea-level rise emerged above pre-industrial rates by 1863 CE (P = 0.9; range of 1825 [P = 0.66] to 1873 CE [P = 0.95]), which is similar in timing to evidence for early ocean warming and glacier melt. The time of emergence in the North Atlantic reveals a distinct spatial pattern, appearing earliest in the mid-Atlantic region (1872–1894 CE) and later in Canada and Europe (1930–1964 CE). Regional and local sea-level changes occurring over different time periods drive the spatial pattern in emergence, suggesting regional processes underlie centennial-timescale sea-level variability over the Common Era.

In this paper, we analysed the results of maize sowing time experiments conducted by the Department of Crop Sciences and Applied Ecology of the University of Debrecen Agricultural Sciences Centre, during the period from 1997-1999. We made the experiments at the experimental garden of DE ATC, on a chernozem soil with lime deposits.In 1997, we examined five hybrids, in 1998 six hybrids, and in 1999 three hybrids, with three sowing times. Sowing times were early (10. Apr. and 08. Apr.), optimal (25. Apr. and 28. Apr.) and late (15. May and 17. May). We examined the following standards: yield, seed moisture content at harvest, thousand kernel mass, duration of flowering, emergence time and profitability.In 1977, the emergence times, in order of sowing, were: 24, 12 and 9 days. Yields of the sowing times were the following, in mean, for the five hybrids: in the early sowing time (10. Apr.) 11,81 t/ha, in the optimal sowing time (25. Apr.) 11,67 t/ha, and in the late sowing time (15. May) 12,9 t/ha. The seed moisture content of the five hybrids at harvest was 8% less in early sowing time, than in the late sowing time. The thousand kernel mass was the biggest in late sowing time, but we could not prove any significant connection attributable to the effect of sowing time. We examinedprofitability, too. Of the five hybrids, four attained the greatest profit with the early sowing time in 1997.In 1998, the emergence times, in the order of sowing, were: 21, 10 and 11 days. Yields of the sowing times were the following, in mean, for the six hybrids: 08. Apr. 10,34 t/ha, 25. Apr. 11,02 t/ha, 15. May 11,52 t/ha. There were no significant differences between yields in 1998. The seed moisture content of the six hybrids at harvest was 7% less for the early sowing time, than for the late sowing time. In 1998, the profits were greatest for theearly and traditional sowing times.In 1999, the numbers of days from sowing to emergence were 18, 9 and 9 days, in the order of sowing times. Yields of the sowing times were the following, in mean, for the three hybrids: 13,25 t/ha, 12,51 t/ha and 12,34 t/ha, in the order of sowing times. The seed moisture content of maizes at harvest was 6% less with an early sowing time in the mean of all hybrids. In 1999, hybrid maizes gave big profits with early sowing times.Summing up the results of the three years, we can conclude that we get a significant yield increase and reduced seed moisture content at harvest if we apply the early sowing time, which can considerably increase the efficiency of maize cultivation.

The Colour of Copyright

Australia in Maps is a compilation of cartography taken from the collection of over 600,000 maps held at the Australian National Library. Included in this collection are military maps, coastal maps and modern-day maps for tourists. The map of the eastern coast of ‘New Holland’ drawn by James Cook when he ‘discovered’ Australia in 1770 is included. Also published is Eddie Koiki Mabo’s map drawn on a hole-punched piece of paper showing traditional land holdings in the Murray Islands in the Torres Strait. This map became a key document in Eddie Mabo’s fight for native title recognition, a fight which became the precursor to native title rights as they are known today. The inclusion of these two drawings in a collection of maps defining Australia as a country illustrates the dichotomies and contradictions which exist in a colonial nation. It is now fifteen years since the Native Title Act 1994 (Commonwealth) was developed in response to the Mabo cases in order to recognise Indigenous customary law and traditional relationships to the land over certain (restricted) parts of Australia. It is 220 years since the First Fleet arrived and Indigenous land was (and remains) illegally possessed through the process of colonisation (Moreton-Robinson Australia). Questions surrounding ‘country’ – who owns it, has rights to use it, to live on it, to develop or protect it – are still contested and contentious today. In part, this contention arises out of the radically different conceptions of ‘country’ held by, in its simplest sense, Indigenous nations and colonisers. For Indigenous Australians the land has a spiritual significance that I, as a non-Indigenous person, cannot properly understand as a result of the different ways in which relationships to land are made available. The ways of understanding the world through which my identity as a non-Indigenous person are made intelligible, by contrast, see ‘country’ as there to be ‘developed’ and exploited. Within colonial logic, discourses of development and the productive use of resources function as what Wetherell and Potter term “rhetorically self-sufficient” in that they are principles which are considered to be beyond question (177). As Vincent Tucker states; “The myth of development is elevated to the status of natural law, objective reality and evolutionary necessity. In the process all other world views are devalued and dismissed as ‘primitive’, ‘backward’, ‘irrational’ or ‘naïve’” (1). It was this precise way of thinking which was able to justify colonisation in the first place. Australia was seen as terra nullius; an empty and un-developed land not recognized as inhabited. Indigenous people were incorrectly perceived as individuals who did not use the land in an efficient manner, rather than as individual nations who engaged with the land in ways that were not intelligible to the colonial eye. This paper considers the tensions inherent in definitions of ‘country’ and the way these tensions are played out through native title claims as white, colonial Australia attempts to recognise (and limit) Indigenous rights to land. It examines such tensions as they appear in the media as an example of how native title issues are made intelligible to the non-Indigenous general public who may otherwise have little knowledge or experience of native title issues. It has been well-documented that the news media play an important role in further disseminating those discourses which dominate in a society, and therefore frequently supports the interests of those in positions of power (Fowler; Hall et. al.). As Stuart Hall argues, this means that the media often reproduces a conservative status quo which in many cases is simply reflective of the positions held by other powerful institutions in society, in this case government, and mining and other commercial interests. This has been found to be the case in past analysis of media coverage of native title, such as work completed by Meadows (which found that media coverage of native title issues focused largely on non-Indigenous perspectives) and Hartley and McKee (who found that media coverage of native title negotiations frequently focused on bureaucratic issues rather than the rights of Indigenous peoples to oppose ‘developments’ on their land). This paper aims to build on this work, and to map the way in which native title, an ongoing issue for many Indigenous groups, figures in a mainstream newspaper at a time when there has not been much mainstream public interest in the process. In order to do this, this paper considered articles which appeared in Australia’s only national newspaper – The Australian – over the six months preceding the start of July 2008. Several main themes ran through these articles, examples of which are provided in the relevant sections. These included: economic interests in native title issues, discourses of white ownership and control of the land, and rhetorical devices which reinforced the battle-like nature of native title negotiations rather than emphasised the rights of Indigenous Australians to their lands. Native Title: Some Definitions and Some Problems The concept of native title itself can be a difficult one to grasp and therefore a brief definition is called for here. According to the National Native Title Tribunal (NNTT) website (www.nntt.gov.au), native title is the recognition by Australian law that some Indigenous people have rights and interests to their land that come from their traditional laws and customs. The native title rights and interests held by particular Indigenous people will depend on both their traditional laws and customs and what interests are held by others in the area concerned. Generally speaking, native title must give way to the rights held by others. Native title is therefore recognised as existing on the basis of certain laws and customs which have been maintained over an area of land despite the disruption caused by colonisation. As such, if native title is to be recognised over an area of country, Indigenous communities have to argue that their cultures and connection with the land have survived colonisation. As the Maori Land Court Chief Judge Joe Williams argues: In Australia the surviving title approach […] requires the Indigenous community to prove in a court or tribunal that colonisation caused them no material injury. This is necessary because, the greater the injury, the smaller the surviving bundle of rights. Communities who were forced off their land lose it. Those whose traditions and languages were beaten out of them at state sponsored mission schools lose all of the resources owned within the matrix of that language and those traditions. This is a perverse result. In reality, of course, colonisation was the greatest calamity in the history of these people on this land. Surviving title asks aboriginal people to pretend that it was not. To prove in court that colonisation caused them no material injury. Communities who were forced off their land are the same communities who are more likely to lose it. As found in previous research (Meadows), these inherent difficulties of the native title process were widely overlooked in recent media reports of native title issues published in The Australian. Due to recent suggestions made by Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin for changes to be made to the native title system, The Australian did include reports on the need to ensure that traditional owners share the economic profits of the mining boom. This was seen in an article by Karvelas and Murphy entitled “Labor to Overhaul Native Title Law”. The article states that: Fifteen years after the passage of the historic Mabo legislation, the Rudd Government has flagged sweeping changes to native title to ensure the benefits of the mining boom flow to Aboriginal communities and are not locked up in trusts or frittered away. Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin, delivering the third annual Eddie Mabo Lecture in Townsville, said yesterday that native title legislation was too complex and had failed to deliver money to remote Aboriginal communities, despite lucrative agreements with mining companies. (1) Whilst this passage appears supportive of Indigenous Australians in that it argues for their right to share in economic gains made through ‘developments’ on their country, the use of phrases such as ‘frittered away’ imply that Indigenous Australians have made poor use of their ‘lucrative agreements’, and therefore require further intervention in their lives in order to better manage their financial situations. Such an argument further implies that the fact that many remote Indigenous communities continue to live in poverty is the fault of Indigenous Australians’ mismanagement of funds from native title agreements rather than from governmental neglect, thereby locating the blame once more in the hands of Indigenous people rather than in a colonial system of dispossession and regulation. Whilst the extract does continue to state that native title legislation is too complex and has ‘failed to deliver money to remote Aboriginal communities’, the article does not go on to consider other areas in which native title is failing Indigenous people, such as reporting the protection of sacred and ceremonial sites, and provisions for Indigenous peoples to be consulted about developments on their land to which they may be opposed. Whilst native title agreements with companies may contain provisions for these issues, it is rare that there is any regulation for whether or not these provisions are met after an agreement is made (Faircheallaigh). These issues almost never appeared in the media which instead focused on the economic benefits (or lack thereof) stemming from the land rather than the sovereign rights of traditional owners to their country. There are many other difficulties inherent in the native title legislation for Indigenous peoples.

The problems set by the Norman conquest of Ireland which began under Henry II cannot be properly appreciated if they are viewed in isolation. Similar problems had been set by the Norman conquest of England only a hundred years earlier; similar problems existed in Wales. In England, however, the conquest had been both rapid and complete, and problems which were to last throughout the middle ages in Ireland were solved in England by the merging of the two peoples in a relatively short time. Moreover, in England no such clash of laws as was to come about in Ireland had followed the conquest: the Anglo-Saxons had possessed a well-developed system of local administration which was taken over with little or no modification by the Norman kings.

The problems set by the Norman conquest of Ireland which began under Henry cannot be properly appreciated if they are viewed in isolation. Similar problems had been set by the Norman conquest of England only a hundred years earlier; similar problems existed in Wales. In the Statute of Wales of 1284, a system of law was laid down for Wales outside the marcher lordships, which though based on the common law included parts of the Welsh customary law, which it seems clear had been developing along lines which brought it closer to English law than has sometimes been supposed. In the reign of Edward, both magnates and the 'middling people of Ireland' were petitioning that the justiciar should have power to admit to English law all Irishmen who desired it, saving the rights of lords over their betaghs.

In contrast to modern Western society's treatment of plants as non-sentient beings to be used or killed at will for our own benefit, the complex legal system used in Ireland from prehistory up until the 17th century delineated penalties for mistreating trees that were not dissimilar to the penalties for mistreating other humans. The early Irish relationship with trees as described in Brehon Law and extant lore was not only utilitarian but also deeply spiritual and tied to the peoples' identity. Brehon Law provides an example from European history that illustrates traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and animistic relationships with the more-than-human world of nature. This paper explores some ecopsychological and environmental benefits of applying its principles today.

Defining the Limits of Governmental Access to Personal Data Stored in the Cloud: An Analysis and Critique of <i>Microsoft Ireland</i>

Defining the Limits of Governmental Access to Personal Data Stored in the Cloud: An Analysis and Critique of <i>Microsoft Ireland</i>

Currently, local governments operate various types of auditing systems. Audits by the National Assembly, the Board of Audit and Inspection, external audits by the central government, internal audits by local assemblies and internal audit bodies, and so on. In the case of foreign countries, since the autonomy of Korea is guaranteed, the internal audit system is well developed rather than the local or federal government. However, in Korea, rather than assuring the autonomy of the local autonomous entities, auditing at the central level is taking place, and self--audits by local assemblies and internal audit bodies are often carried out at the formal level. Local governments operate these types of auditing systems, but there are still many problems with the auditing system of local governments. Especially, there are many kinds of auditing system and there is insufficient division of the scope of auditing, and audits are conducted to make duplicate audits or unnecessary affairs. Self-audit There is also a lack of independence and expertise, so insufficient effectiveness of auditing and lack of support from self-audit bodies limits the ability to influence However, in order to guarantee the autonomy of the local autonomous entities of the local autonomous entities, Korea will examine the ways of improving the external audits and strengthening the self - audit, and discuss the audit system to guarantee the autonomy of the local autonomous entities.