Irish Law MCP Server

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

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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.

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Quick Start

Use Remotely (No Install Needed)

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

Endpoint: https://mcp.ansvar.eu/law-ie/mcp

Claude Desktop -- add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "irish-law": {
      "type": "url",
      "url": "https://mcp.ansvar.eu/law-ie/mcp"
    }
  }
}

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

{
  "github.copilot.chat.mcp.servers": {
    "irish-law": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.ansvar.eu/law-ie/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"]
    }
  }
}

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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"

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What's Included

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

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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.

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Available Tools (13)

Core Legal Research Tools (8)

EU Law Integration Tools (5)

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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.

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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:

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Security

This project uses multiple layers of automated security scanning:

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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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}
}

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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)

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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

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