My client brings the info from each room to the other. He mediates to find an agreeable settlement without an expensive court battle. My instinct was to do similar with the divided sheet of paper. I laid gold leaf on one half of the sheet and silver on the other. Later, I added some of each metal to the opposite side—I brought gold to the silver and vice versa. I realised that is what my client does with his intent to resolve conflict.  

I met Turlough O’Donnell, Senior Counsel and a lawman without a gun, at the only Irish Bar with no beer. 

He seemed respected by everyone in the building and even in neighbouring buildings. He showed me the planned location for the commissioned art and explained his intentions. We discussed over breakfast at the Bar. His chosen text was perhaps the first copyright ruling in Ireland.

This judgement was allegedly against St Columcille—for secretly copying the text of a rare psalter. Was he a saint or a scoundrel? Yes, his calligraphy was declared illegal! (At least the copying of the text was.) The high king ordered Columcille to hand over his handwritten copy with the ruling: As to every cow belongs its calf, so to every book belongs its copy. (The client specified a briefer text version.)

I did not want to illustrate the text with a picture of a cow and a book (anyone who reads these nouns will picture them as they wish). I instead used counterchanges to make an abstract portrait of give and take. I wrote calligraphic bees directly with a broad-edged pen (see above). These allude to a different set of ancient Irish laws. The Brehon Laws include a tract regulating beekeeping.

Somehow, a feeling kicked in. I know the term counterchange from heraldry. I realised I was counterchanging gold and silver. I brought the gold to the silver, and then I had to return some silver to the gold. Metaphorically, this is my client’s job. He runs between two rooms in the Dublin Dispute Resolution Centre, mediating to find agreement between opposing parties.  

I made the picture frame for the artwork. Gilt gradients on either side also counterchange gold against silver.  

Some power came through my dedication! It happens sometimes. In calligraphy, most aim for beauty. Many think that means prettiness. However, real beauty holds power and is provocative. It comes through oneself as much as by oneself. It depends on a capability to communicate concepts with the educated, but it also needs raw confidence. Knowing yet pushing one’s viewers and clients, and also oneself.
 

I received a copyright notification on the music at the end of my video. That is very ironic for a video discussing the first ruling of copyright for The Bar of Ireland! I hold a licence for this track. I have full rights to use it on YouTube and elsewhere. A third party claimed to be the rightsholder of the same track under a different name. I dispatched the claim, proving the disputer was not the only rightsholder and that I had a licence from another legitimate company.

Denis Brown, 2025



The image below incorporates a manuscript page I copied on vellum and cased in bloody resin many years ago. It's a page from the Cathach, believed to be the rip-off of the manuscript secretly copied by Columcille. A legal dispute caused a war, and 3,000 lives were lost. I copied the early style and, in doing so,  ironically ripped off a manuscript page that allegedly received the first judgment of copyright. Typical of Irish scribes to express irony in their marginal notes!