Irish Law MCP Server

The Irish law corpus is now served through the Ansvar Gateway. Connect your AI assistant (Claude, Copilot, Cursor, custom MCP client) to https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp — one OAuth connection, free tier available, covering this corpus plus EU regulations, national law across 28 audited jurisdictions, and CVE/security intelligence, every result with a verbatim source citation. Start at https://ansvar.eu/docs/quickstart

Connect

Claude Code (one line):

claude mcp add ansvar --transport http https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp

Claude Desktop / Cursor — add to claude_desktop_config.json (or mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ansvar": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Claude.ai — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → paste https://gateway.ansvar.eu/mcp

First request opens an OAuth signup flow (setup details: ansvar.eu/docs/quickstart). After signup, your client is bound to your account; tier (free / premium / team / company) determines fan-out, quota, and which downstream MCPs are reachable.

Self-host this MCP

You can also clone this repo and build the corpus yourself. The schema, fetcher, and tool implementations all live here. What is not in the repo is the pre-built database — TDM and standards-licensing constraints on the upstream sources mean we host the corpus on Ansvar infrastructure rather than redistribute it as a public artifact.

Build your own: run this repo's ingestion script (entry-point varies per repo — typically scripts/ingest.sh, npm run ingest, or make ingest; check the repo root).

The Irish Statute Book alternative for the AI age.

Query 3,972 Irish statutes -- from the Data Protection Act 2018 and Criminal Justice Act to the Companies Act 2014, Employment Equality Acts, and more -- directly from Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client.

If you're building legal tech, compliance tools, or doing Irish legal research, this is your verified reference database.

Built by Ansvar Systems -- Stockholm, Sweden

Related MCP server: ie-eli-mcp

Why This Exists

Irish legal research is scattered across the Irish Statute Book, the Attorney General's office publications, and EUR-Lex. Whether you're:

• A solicitor or barrister validating citations in a brief or contract

• A compliance officer checking if a statute is still in force or amended

• A legal tech developer building tools on Irish law

• A researcher tracing legislative provisions across 3,972 statutes

...you shouldn't need dozens of browser tabs and manual cross-referencing. Ask Claude. Get the exact provision. With context.

This MCP server makes Irish law searchable, cross-referenceable, and AI-readable.

Example Queries

Once connected, just ask naturally:

• "What does the Data Protection Act 2018 say about processing sensitive personal data?"

• "Is the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 still in force?"

• "Find provisions about employment equality in the Employment Equality Acts 1998-2015"

• "Which Irish statutes implement the GDPR?"

• "What EU directive is the basis for the Companies Act 2014 provisions on annual returns?"

• "Validate the citation 'Data Protection Act 2018, s. 71'"

• "Build a legal stance on data breach notification requirements under Irish law"

• "Compare incident reporting obligations in the Network and Information Systems Directive (NIS) transposition"

What's Included

Verified data only -- every citation is validated against official sources (Irish Statute Book, Attorney General's office). Zero LLM-generated content.

See It In Action

Why This Works

Verbatim Source Text (No LLM Processing):

• All statute text is ingested from the Irish Statute Book (irishstatutebook.ie) official sources

• Provisions are returned unchanged from SQLite FTS5 database rows

• Zero LLM summarization or paraphrasing -- the database contains statute text, not AI interpretations

Smart Context Management:

• Search returns ranked provisions with BM25 scoring (safe for context)

• Provision retrieval gives exact text by Act short title + section number

• Cross-references help navigate without loading everything at once

Technical Architecture:

Irish Statute Book → Parse → SQLite → FTS5 snippet() → MCP response
                      ↑                      ↑
               Provision parser       Verbatim database query

Traditional Research vs. This MCP

Traditional: Search Irish Statute Book → Navigate Act HTML → Ctrl+F → Cross-reference → Check EUR-Lex for EU basis → Repeat

This MCP: "Which section of the Data Protection Act 2018 transposes GDPR Article 9 on special categories?" → Done.

Available Tools (13)

Core Legal Research Tools (8)

EU Law Integration Tools (5)

EU Law Integration

Ireland is an EU member state. Irish legislation directly transposes EU directives and implements EU regulations, creating a traceable mapping between Irish and EU law.

Key areas of EU-Irish law alignment:

• GDPR (2016/679) -- implemented via the Data Protection Act 2018 and Data Protection Regulations 2018 (S.I. No. 174/2018)

• NIS2 Directive (2022/2555) -- transposed into Irish network and information security legislation

• eIDAS Regulation (910/2014) -- applicable directly; supplemented by national electronic signature provisions

• DORA (2022/2554) -- financial sector digital operational resilience obligations

• AI Act (2024/1689) -- EU regulation applicable directly across all member states

• Companies Directives -- Company law harmonisation across the EU single market

The EU bridge tools provide bi-directional lookup: find which Irish statutes implement a given EU act, or find which EU acts underpin a given Irish provision.

See EU_INTEGRATION_GUIDE.md for detailed documentation and EU_USAGE_EXAMPLES.md for practical examples.

Data Sources & Freshness

All content is sourced from authoritative Irish legal databases:

• Irish Statute Book -- Official consolidated Acts and Statutory Instruments, Office of the Attorney General

• Oireachtas -- Preparatory works (Bills and Explanatory Memoranda)

• EUR-Lex -- Official EU law database (metadata only)

Automated Freshness Checks (Daily)

A daily GitHub Actions workflow monitors all data sources:

Security

This project uses multiple layers of automated security scanning:

See SECURITY.md for the full policy and vulnerability reporting.

Important Disclaimers

Legal Advice

THIS TOOL IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE

Statute text is sourced from the Irish Statute Book (Office of the Attorney General). However:

• This is a research tool, not a substitute for professional legal counsel

• Court case coverage is limited -- do not rely solely on this for case law research

• Verify critical citations against primary sources for court filings

• EU cross-references are extracted from Irish statute text, not EUR-Lex full text

• Always confirm current in-force status via the Irish Statute Book before relying on a provision professionally

Before using professionally, read: DISCLAIMER.md | PRIVACY.md

Client Confidentiality

Queries go through the Claude API. For privileged or confidential matters, use on-premise deployment. See PRIVACY.md for Law Society of Ireland and Bar Council of Ireland compliance guidance.

Documentation

• EU Integration Guide -- Detailed EU cross-reference documentation

• EU Usage Examples -- Practical EU lookup examples

• Security Policy -- Vulnerability reporting and scanning details

• Disclaimer -- Legal disclaimers and professional use notices

• Privacy -- Client confidentiality and data handling

Development

Setup

git clone https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/Ireland-law-mcp
cd Ireland-law-mcp
npm install
npm run build
npm test

Running Locally

npm run dev                                       # Start MCP server
npx @anthropic/mcp-inspector node dist/index.js   # Test with MCP Inspector

Data Management

npm run ingest              # Ingest statutes from Irish Statute Book
npm run build:db            # Rebuild SQLite database
npm run check-updates       # Check for amendments and new statutes

Performance

• Search Speed: <100ms for most FTS5 queries

• Database Size: 220 MB (comprehensive corpus)

• Reliability: 100% ingestion success rate

More Ansvar MCPs

Full fleet coverage at ansvar.eu/coverage.

Contributing

Contributions welcome! See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

Priority areas:

• Court case law expansion (Supreme Court, Court of Appeal)

• EU Regulations MCP integration (full EU law text, CJEU case law)

• Historical statute versions and amendment tracking

• Statutory Instruments (secondary legislation) expansion

Roadmap

• Core statute database with FTS5 search

• Full corpus ingestion (3,972 statutes, 91,528 provisions)

• Preparatory works ingestion (5,926 documents)

• EU law integration tools

• Vercel Streamable HTTP deployment

• Daily freshness checks

• Case law expansion (Supreme Court, Court of Appeal)

• Historical statute versions (amendment tracking)

• Statutory Instruments expansion

Citation

If you use this MCP server in academic research:

@software{irish_law_mcp_2026,
  author = {Ansvar Systems AB},
  title = {Irish Law MCP Server: Production-Grade Legal Research Tool},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://github.com/Ansvar-Systems/Ireland-law-mcp},
  note = {Comprehensive Irish legal database with 3,972 statutes and 91,528 provisions}
}

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for details.

Data Licenses

Ansvar attribution code: Irish-PSI-Licence. Ireland is NOT a statutory-public-domain jurisdiction. The reuse basis is tri-source.

• Statutes & Bills (Oireachtas copyright): reproduced under the Houses-of-the-Oireachtas reproduction permission published in the irishstatutebook.ie footer notice: "Oireachtas Copyright Material is reproduced with the permission of the Houses of the Oireachtas." Government Copyright (CRRA 2000 s. 191) and Oireachtas Copyright (s. 192) both subsist with 50-year terms.

• Administrative materials: Irish PSI Re-use Regulations 2005 (S.I. No. 525 of 2005), implementing the EU PSI Directive. The default PSI licence at psi.gov.ie is comparable to OGL-3.0 — non-exclusive, royalty-free, commercial reuse permitted with attribution.

• Case law (courts.ie): separate basis under courts.ie portal terms. Not currently in scope for this MCP. CRRA 2000 s. 71 is a narrow permitted-acts exception (proceedings purpose only) — NOT a PD exclusion.

• EU Metadata: EUR-Lex (EU public-domain notice).

Coverage scope (tri-source)

See docs/audits/2026-05-17-eu-copyright-statutory-works-batch-1b-DE-IE-IT-NL-ES.md §2 in the Ansvar architecture-documentation repo for the verbatim CRRA 2000 ss. 191–192 + s. 71 text and the coverage analysis.

About Ansvar Systems

We build AI-accelerated compliance and legal research tools for the European market. This MCP server started as our internal reference tool for Irish law -- turns out everyone building for the Irish and EU markets has the same research frustrations.

So we're open-sourcing it. Navigating 3,972 statutes shouldn't require a law degree.

ansvar.eu -- Stockholm, Sweden