Irish Law MCP Server

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

---

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.

---

Quick Start

Use Remotely (No Install Needed)

Connect directly to the hosted version -- zero dependencies, nothing to install.

Endpoint: https://irish-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp

Client	How to Connect
Claude.ai	Settings > Connectors > Add Integration > paste URL
Claude Code	claude mcp add irish-law --transport http https://irish-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp
Claude Desktop	Add to config (see below)
GitHub Copilot	Add to VS Code settings (see below)

Claude Desktop -- add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "irish-law": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://irish-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

GitHub Copilot -- add to VS Code settings.json:

{
  "github.copilot.chat.mcp.servers": {
    "irish-law": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://irish-law-mcp.vercel.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Use Locally (npm)

npx @ansvar/irish-law-mcp

Claude Desktop -- add to claude_desktop_config.json:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "irish-law": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@ansvar/irish-law-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor / VS Code:

{
  "mcp.servers": {
    "irish-law": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@ansvar/irish-law-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

---

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

Category	Count	Details
Statutes	3,972 statutes	Comprehensive Irish legislation from the Irish Statute Book
Provisions	91,528 sections	Full-text searchable with FTS5
Preparatory Works	5,926 documents	Oireachtas Bills and Explanatory Memoranda
EU Cross-References	Included	Directives and regulations linked to Irish transpositions
Database Size	220 MB	Optimized SQLite, portable
Daily Updates	Automated	Freshness checks against irishstatutebook.ie

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 Approach	This MCP Server
Search Irish Statute Book by Act name	Search by plain English: "data processing consent"
Navigate multi-part statutes manually	Get the exact provision with context
Manual cross-referencing between Acts	build_legal_stance aggregates across sources
"Is this statute still in force?" → check manually	check_currency tool → answer in seconds
Find EU basis → dig through EUR-Lex	get_eu_basis → linked EU directives instantly
Check multiple sites for updates	Daily automated freshness checks
No API, no integration	MCP protocol → AI-native

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)

Tool	Description
search_legislation	FTS5 full-text search across 91,528 provisions with BM25 ranking
get_provision	Retrieve specific provision by Act short title + section number
validate_citation	Validate citation against database -- zero-hallucination check
build_legal_stance	Aggregate citations from multiple Acts for a legal topic
format_citation	Format citations per Irish conventions (full/short/pinpoint)
check_currency	Check if statute is in force, amended, or repealed
list_sources	List all available statutes with metadata and data provenance
about	Server info, capabilities, dataset statistics, and coverage summary

EU Law Integration Tools (5)

Tool	Description
get_eu_basis	Get EU directives/regulations that underpin an Irish statute
get_irish_implementations	Find Irish laws implementing a specific EU act
search_eu_implementations	Search EU documents with Irish implementation counts
get_provision_eu_basis	Get EU law references for a specific provision
validate_eu_compliance	Check implementation status of Irish statutes against EU directives

---

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.

Metric	Value
EU Member State	Since 1973
Legal System	Common law (with Irish constitutional overlay)
Official Statute Collection	Irish Statute Book (irishstatutebook.ie)
Parliament	Oireachtas (oireachtas.ie)
EUR-Lex Integration	Automated metadata fetching

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:

Source	Check	Method
Statute amendments	Irish Statute Book comparison	All 3,972 statutes checked
New statutes	Irish Statute Book publications (90-day window)	Diffed against database
Preparatory works	Oireachtas Bills feed (30-day window)	New Bills detected
EU reference staleness	Git commit timestamps	Flagged if >90 days old

---

Security

This project uses multiple layers of automated security scanning:

Scanner	What It Does	Schedule
CodeQL	Static analysis for security vulnerabilities	Weekly + PRs
Semgrep	SAST scanning (OWASP top 10, secrets, TypeScript)	Every push
Gitleaks	Secret detection across git history	Every push
Trivy	CVE scanning on filesystem and npm dependencies	Daily
Docker Security	Container image scanning + SBOM generation	Daily
Socket.dev	Supply chain attack detection	PRs
OSSF Scorecard	OpenSSF best practices scoring	Weekly
Dependabot	Automated dependency updates	Weekly

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

---

Related Projects: Complete Compliance Suite

This server is part of Ansvar's Compliance Suite -- MCP servers that work together for end-to-end compliance coverage:

@ansvar/eu-regulations-mcp

Query 49 EU regulations directly from Claude -- GDPR, AI Act, DORA, NIS2, MiFID II, eIDAS, and more. Full regulatory text with article-level search. npx @ansvar/eu-regulations-mcp

@ansvar/irish-law-mcp (This Project)

Query 3,972 Irish statutes directly from Claude -- Data Protection Act 2018, Companies Act, Criminal Justice Acts, and more. Full provision text with EU cross-references. npx @ansvar/irish-law-mcp

@ansvar/uk-law-mcp

Query UK statutes directly from Claude -- common law tradition, post-Brexit landscape. npx @ansvar/uk-law-mcp

@ansvar/security-controls-mcp

Query 261 security frameworks -- ISO 27001, NIST CSF, SOC 2, CIS Controls, SCF, and more. npx @ansvar/security-controls-mcp

@ansvar/sanctions-mcp

Offline-capable sanctions screening -- OFAC, EU, UN sanctions lists. pip install ansvar-sanctions-mcp

70+ national law MCPs covering Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and more.

---

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
• npm package publication
• 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

• Statutes & Legislation: Office of the Attorney General Ireland (public domain)
• Preparatory Works: Houses of the Oireachtas (public domain)
• EU Metadata: EUR-Lex (EU public domain)

---

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

---

_{Built with care in Stockholm, Sweden}