Daniel Anthony Binchy (1900–1989) was a scholar of Irish linguistics and Early Irish law.
His actions shortly after the formation the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies is satirized in Brian O'Nolan's poem Binchy and Bergin and Best, originally printed in the Cruskeen Lawn column in the Irish Times and now included in The Best of Myles.
He served as Ireland's ambassador to Germany from 1929 to 1932. While there he received instruction from Rudolf Thurneysen which allow him to begin his study of Early Irish Law. He was, for a time, the main academic investigating the legal system and for some time his ideas were the orthodoxy. While his contributions still underlay the foundations, some of his analysis, however, has been reexamined. Many of his attempts to connect early Irish law to Celtic Law and even to Indo-European law have come under considerable doubt. However, his contributions are also lasting on account of his production of numerous translations and additions of legal texts. His final major work, the six volume Corpus Iuris Hibernici, collected almost all texts in the native Irish legal tradition, thus offering later scholars a firm ground to stand upon.
Binchy is the uncle of author Maeve Binchy
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