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Irish Times

A US animal lawyer in Wexford: ‘There's a real social cost here: if you're not fun, you're gonna pay'

Peter Brandt is an animal lawyer. So do the animals speak when hiring a brief? Jokes aside, he tells me about the 'long weird history of legal systems prosecuting animals, for example the mice, for eating crops in France . They would call the mice into court, and the mice wouldn't show up. It's bizarre.' His interest in law is highly specialised, primarily farm-animal-focused , involving suing enormous polluting farms, or mobilising citizens to change state laws, mandating minimum standards for dignified and humane lives for farm animals. From a legal family, he grew up around Seattle, later living in Portland . Interested in animal activism, he studied law. Animal law is also how he met his wife, Becky Jenkins. This is a tale of romance, and two animal rights lawyer-activists whose path together has meandered between Portland, Vancouver and now Wexford , Jenkins's hometown. They met at the law school where she was doing an advanced degree after law at Trinity; he was back at his alma mater talking about animal law. READ MORE He paints a picture of initially being a bit clueless. 'I'm really oblivious about these kinds of things. We would meet up at coffee shops. There's a lot of that in Portland. I was like, she has a lot of time to just meet up and hang out in coffee shops. Well, she's European, maybe that's more common.' She had her eye on him. 'I was really in the dark for quite a while.' Eventually they started dating. Her US visa was running out, and while she was back home sorting it, he visited a friend in London, leaving early to fly to Ireland in September 2019, where he met her family. She'd been misinformed about visa requirements, and couldn't return to the US, so she moved to Vancouver, Canada, a couple of hours from Portland, her apartment, dog – and Brandt. He drove back and forth. For a while during Covid, with regions closed, she couldn't move back to the US, while he couldn't move to Canada. They married at the US-Canadian border in late 2020, in Peace Arch Park, a limbo-like territory straddling both countries. Even married, moving to Canada was tricky. 'On my first attempt, I was turned back at the border late on a December night with my three cats in the car.' Eventually after a year together in Vancouver, they moved to Ireland in November 2021, settling near Wexford town, where her parents and wider family live. It's been eventful few years for Brandt. After all the cross-border drama and romance, what does he make of it? 'It's been pretty easy for me. I've been very fortunate. I speak the language. And showing up where we've got Becky's family and she has friends in Dublin and Wexford. Maybe I've been lucky but I tend to get along pretty well with people here. 'Frankly, if I was given the choice of meeting a few random Americans or a few random Irish people, I'll always choose the random Irish people. You never know what you're gonna get, but there's a sensibility here. People are better at a conversation. In America, and it's a generalisation but there's a tendency to hyper-literalism. People aren't as funny, and don't really value having a good story to tell, and being funny. There's a real social cost here: If you're tedious, if you're not fun, you're gonna pay. In America, that's not really penalised enough, I don't think.' Peter Brandt and his wife Becky Jenkins in Wexford. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw He sees differences in personal interaction. 'I think I resonate more with the self-deprecating humour here.' He's read Roddy Doyle. 'I'd seen all of Father Ted before I ever met Becky. I'm a huge Sharon Horgan fan.' 'No one's heard of animal law, even in America,' Brandt says; a couple of years ago he wrote a humorous memoir about life as an animal lawyer. With such a specialised field, living in a small country, he's continued to work remotely here as a contract attorney for US charities, including the Humane Society of the United States (recently renamed Humane World for Animals). While he's worked remotely since 2007, it can be trickier here: instead of starting at 7am, he works from 2pm, into the night. [ Why has Vancouver become so attractive for Irish immigrants? Opens in new window ] The job can be stressful, and the research tedious, so 'I can't do this work without a lot of coffee. But I have to stop drinking coffee. A night-time call at 9pm, with no caffeine, is a challenge. My whole way of living had to change.' He has since reduced supervising and administration, concentrating on writing and research, so it's more manageable. Jenkins has continued with activism, for Animal Rebellion Ireland, and is also an actor, doing plays and short films. Having lived in the US for seven years, her American accent comes in handy. 'One of the things I always liked about Becky was how she got into a lot of different things. When I first met her, she was in a poetry class, learning stand-up comedy, and animal law.' Since moving, 'a lot of my family and friends are contacting me, asking how can we move to Ireland?' His parents love visiting. 'Mom has a little bit of Irish heritage. Like every American who comes to Ireland, I have an Irish ancestor or two in there.' He recalls early on, hearing two guys chatting on the street. 'I said to Becky, spoken Irish sounds really unusual. And she's like, that's just a Wexford townie accent. I could not understand a thing they were saying.' I'm just happy to be here. Me and Rosie O'Donnell, part of the narrow end of the wedge He struggles to find negatives about his life here. 'It's difficult to get a GP in Wexford. But for me, the positives so outweigh any of the negatives. I just have dumb little Larry David-type frustrations', like the 'tyranny of the duvet', where hotels have heavy duvets, without separate top-sheets or lighter options, so 'you're either too hot or too cold. It's like buying a car that goes 100 miles an hour, or zero, but there's nothing in between'. More seriously, he's lived in cities all over the US, but 'I've never had so much proximity to suicide as since I moved here.' He regularly hears about people who've died by suicide, and even witnessed an attempt in town. 'It's a small area, so people tend to know lots of people. That is horrible, and that's a real negative.' American cities tend to have more mental health resources available, 'though often limited ways of accessing them. I'd say in the circles I run in the United States, mental health is talked about more. There's not as much stigma. It wouldn't be uncommon to take time off work and actually say it was for mental health-related reasons.' While it's changing here, 'in my experience, this stuff is not talked about as much', with a just-tough-it-out attitude. Mind you, 'if I lived in Nebraska, people would not be talking about mental health. It depends where you are.' He observes 'there's a lot that is terrible about being a lawyer in the US', including that US 'lawyers have far and away more mental health and substance-abuse issues than the general population. For whatever reason, it's very hard on people.' He speculates it's because 'you're trained to spot the worst case scenario, all the time. Then it's hard to shut that off when you leave work.' [ 'Animals are so straightforward. They will love unconditionally. We almost don't deserve them' Opens in new window ] Here things can sometimes be 'a bit surface-level. You can meet somebody who's going through some fundamental crises in their life, and they might not tell you. Like, everything's fine. Then you find out later they were going through something. A lot of stuff is kept buried.' While he and Jenkins 'don't really make a lot of long-term plans', they're staying in Ireland. 'I'm just happy to be here. Me and Rosie O'Donnell, part of the narrow end of the wedge.' If you are affected by any of the mental health issues in this piece, please contact The Samaritans at 116 123 or email jo@ We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland. To get involved, email newtotheparish@