The O'Donoghues are a family whose ancestors were among he first to embrace the Brehon laws. Keeping true to the essence of those laws on hospitality - they welcome you to celebrate with them The Brehon Experience.
The Brehon Laws
Brehon Laws were civil laws that governed everyday life in the 15th Century and were concerned with payment of compensation for harm done and the regulation of property, inheritance and contracts. The name Brehon comes from the Irish word for 'Judge'
Passed on orally from at least the first century BC the Brehon Laws, named for Ireland's wandering jurists, were first set down on parchment in the seventh century AD, using the newly-developed, written Irish Language, and continued in use until the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Some of the Brehon's buried their precious manuscripts, or hid them behind loose stones in the hearth. Other manuscripts became torn or damp, and were burned or
allowed to rot. Fortunately, a good number of manuscripts fell into the hands of collectors, and are now safe in the libraries around Europe.
In 1852 the Brehon Law commission employed two natice Irish scholars, to unrabel the mysteries of the laws. For clarity they first copied the laws onto fresh sheets of paper. Then they translated them into English.
What gradually came to light was not simply a collection of dry and dusty prohibitions, but thousands of details - details that describe ancient life in the days when the Irish still lived in mud huts and small ringed settlements, and paid their bills in cows and bacon.
So the Irish Laws serve as a repository of primitive customs, some dating back 3,000 years and most gathered by Celtic wanderers from various members of the far-flung Indo-European family.
The Story of our Logo
The Salmon depicted in The Brehon logo represents the Salmon of knowledge - from Irish Mythology. The story goes that the poet Fiegas spent 7 years fishing for this salmon, because he knew if he caught it and ate its flesh he would have all the knowledge in the world. When he caught it he asked his young apprentice Fionn to cook it. As he cooked it Fionn burned his thumb and sucked it to relieve the pain. When Fionn gave the cooked fish to his boss, Fiegas saw from the light in Fionn's eyes that he had gained all the knowledge and wisdom of the salmon. Fionn later became the leader of the Fianna famed heros of Irish myth.
The Story of Danú
In Irish mythology, Danú is the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann Old Irish: "The peoples of the goddess Danú "). Though primarily seen as an ancestral figure, some Victorian sources also associate her with the land. Danú was considered as the mythic mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Celtic tribes that first invaded Ireland. Indeed, the Thuata Dé were the descendants of the goddess Danú, and in some local instances, the ruler of the otherworld was a goddess, rather than a god, just as some folktales represented the otherworld as 'the Land of Women'. Danú may be connected with Bridget, daughter of Kildare and of learning, culture and skills.
