Flogging out-of-date laws from the books

Flogging, a crackdown on swearing, a reward for information about an attack on a king’s deer, and an order to catch a Kilkenny gang.

No, these aren’t new laws dreamt up by the Coalition as they plan an exit from the bailout; they’re among thousands of regulations which the Government has agreed to repeal. Some of the laws are hundreds of years old.

One measure still in place for the Dublin lord mayor declares that any unlicensed beggar found in the city be “tied to the end of a cart and... whipped till his body be bloody”.

Another declares that the mayor will institute a crackdown on swearing, gambling, and the sale of commodities on the Sabbath, and demands that those drinking “in time of divine service” be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Another order being scrapped is an offer from the “lord justices” of a pardon and a reward of £20 for information relating to a fatal attack on the king’s deer by “some idle and disorderly persons” who sneaked into Phoenix Park after dark.

Another law being dumped is a 1712 proclamation from Dublin Castle promising a £500 reward for the discovery of the writer of Honest Resolves, a book containing “treasonable libels” about Queen Anne, which was found at a coffee house in Dublin.