tribute and allegiance from the flaiths or nobles in his tuath. The tuath was the political unit, and the ruler of it was the lowest to whom the term “king” was applied. For each payment of tribute a king always made some return. Every king was obliged, on his inauguration, to swear that he would govern justly and according to law, to which he remained always subject. The Ard-Rig was selected by the sub-kings and other leading men who legally constituted the Feis of Tara, the sub-kings by those under them in their respective spheres. No person not of full age, imperfectly educated, stupid, blind, deaf, deformed or otherwise defective in mind or body, or for any reason whatsoever unfit to discharge the duties or unworthy to represent the manhood of the nation, could be king, even though he were the eldest son of the preceding king. “It is a forbidden thing for one with a blemish to be king at Tara.”
Tuath, Cinel and Clann were synonyms meaning a small tribe or nation descended from a common ancestor. A king and clan being able, subject to certain limitations, to adopt new members or families, or amalgamate with another clan, the theory of common origin was not rigidly adhered to. Kinship with the clan was an essential qualification for holding any office or property. The rules of kinship largely determined status with its correlative rights and obligations, supplied the place of contract and of laws affecting the ownership, disposition and devolution of property, constituting the clan an organic, self-contained entity, a political, social and mutual insurance co-partnership. The solidarity of the clan was its most important and all-pervading characteristic. The entire territory occupied by a clan was the common and absolute property of that clan. Subject to this permanent and fundamental ownership, part of the land was set apart for the maintenance of the king as such. Warriors, statesmen, Brehons, Ollamhs, physicians, poets, and even eminent workers in the more important arts, were, in different degrees, rewarded with free lands for their respective public services. On the death of any person so rewarded, the land in theory reverted to the clan; but if like services continued to be rendered by the son or other successor, and accepted by the clan, the land was not withdrawn. The successors of statesmen, for whom the largest provision was made, became a permanent nobility. Flaith (flah = noble chief) was a term applied to a man of this rank. Rank, with the accompanying privileges, jurisdiction and responsibility, was based upon a qualification of kinship and of property, held by a family for a specified number of generations, together with certain concurrent conditions; and it could be lost by loss of property, crime, cowardice or other disgraceful conduct. The flaiths in every tuath and all ranks of society were organized on the same hierarchical pattern as royalty. A portion of land called the Cumhal Senorba was devoted to the support of widows, orphans and old childless people.
Fine (finna), originally meaning family, came in course of time to be applied to a group of kindred families or to a whole clan. From differences between incidental accounts written in different ages, it appears that the social system underwent some change. For the purpose of conveying some idea, one theory may be taken, according to which the fine was made up of seventeen clansmen, with their families, viz. the Geilfine consisting of the flaith-fine and four others in the same or nearest degree of kinship to the centre, and the Deirbhfine, Tarfine and Innfine, each consisting of four heads of families, forming widening concentric circles of kinship to which the rights and liabilities of the fine extended with certainty, but in diminishing degrees.
In course of time a large and increasing proportion of the good land became, under the titles so far described, limited private property. The area of arable land available for the common use of the clansmen was gradually diminished by these encroachments, but was still always substantial. A share of this was the birthright of every law-abiding member of the Feini who needed it. To satisfy this title and give a start in life to some young men who would otherwise have got none, this land was subject to Gabhailcine (= clan-resumption), meaning that the clan resumed the whole area at intervals of a few years for a fresh distribution after some occupants had died, and young men by attaining manhood had become entitled. Hence the Anglo-Irish word gavelkind. Anciently this re-distribution extended throughout the clan at the same time. Later it extended only to the land of a fine, each fine making its own distribution at its own time and in its own way as determined by the seventeen men above specified. In this distribution men might or might not receive again their former portions. In the latter case compensation was made for unexhausted improvements. This land could not be sold, nor even let except for a season in case of domestic necessity. The Feini who used it had no landlord and no rent to pay for this land, and could not be deprived of it except by the clan for a crime. They were subject only to public tributes and the ordinary obligations of free men. Presumably their homesteads were not on this land and were not subject to Gabhailcine. Neither were the unfenced and unappropriated common lands—waste, bog, forest and mountain—which all clansmen were free to use promiscuously at will.
There was hardly any selling and little letting of land in ancient times. Flaiths and other persons holding large areas let to clansmen, who then became Ceiles, not land, but the privilege of feeding upon land a number of cattle specified by agreement. Flaiths and Bo-aires also let cattle to a ceile who had none or not enough, and this was the most prevalent practice. There were two distinct methods of letting and hiring—saer (= free) and daer (= base), the conditions being fundamentally different. The conditions of saer-tenure were largely settled by the law, were comparatively easy, did not require any security to be given, left the ceile free within the limits of justice to end the connexion, left him competent in case of dispute to give evidence against that of the flaith, and did not impose any liability on the fine of the ceile. By continued user of the same land for some years and discharge of the public obligations in respect of it in addition to the ciss or payment as tenant, a ceile became a sub-owner or permanent tenant and could not be evicted. There is no provision in these laws for evicting any one. For the hire of cattle a usual payment was one beast in seven per annum for seven years; after which the cattle that remained became the property of the hirer. A saer-ceile on growing wealthy might become a bo-aire. Daer-tenure, whether of cattle or of the right to graze cattle upon land, was subject to a ciss-ninsciss (= wearisome tribute), for the payment of which security had to be given. A man not in the enjoyment of full civil rights, if able to find security, could become a daer-ceile. A free clansman by becoming a daer-ceile lowered his own status and that of his fine, became incompetent to give evidence against that of a flaith, and could not end the connexion until the end of the term except by a large payment. The members of his fine were liable, in the degree of their relationship, to make good out of their own property any default in the payments. Hence this tenure could not be legally entered into by a free clansman without the permission of his fine. Daer-ceiles were also exposed to casual burdens, like that of lodging and feeding soldiers when in their district. All payments were made in kind. When the particular kind was not specified by the law or by agreement, the payments were made according to convenience in horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, wool, butter, bacon, corn, vegetables, yarn, dye-plants, leather, cloth, articles of use or ornament, &c. As the clan system relaxed, and the fine lost its legal power of fixing the amounts of public tributes, which were similarly payable to the flaith, and neglected its duty of seeing that those tributes were duly applied, the flaith became able to increase these tributes with little check, to confuse them with rent, to confuse jurisdiction with ownership, and to exalt himself at the expense of his fellow-clansmen. A flaith by arranging that his tenants should make their payments at different periods of the year, secured a constant and copious supply without an inconvenient surplus.
People who did not belong to the clan and were not citizens were in a base condition and incompetent to appear in court in suit or defence except through a freeman. The Bothach (= cottier) and the Sen-clèithe (= old dependent) were people who, though living for successive generations attached to the families of flaiths, did not belong to the clan and had no rights of
