Flogging out-of-date laws from the books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”.