D. A. Binchy

[2] He served the Department of Foreign Affairs in Berlin as Ireland's first ambassador to Germany, then ruled by the Weimar Republic, from 1929 to 1932.

This allowed Binchy to read original manuscripts and begin his study of early Irish law.

[citation needed] However, his contributions are also lasting on account of his production of numerous translations and editions of legal texts.

His activities are affectionately satirized in Brian O'Nolan's poem Binchy and Bergin and Best, originally printed in the Cruiskeen Lawn column in the Irish Times and now included in The Best of Myles.

His final major work, the six-volume Corpus Iuris Hibernici, collected almost all texts in the native Irish legal tradition and thus offers later scholars a firm ground to stand upon.