ishable by a system of fines called erics. The land was owned by
the clan. Primogeniture was unknown, and the succession to the office
of chief was determined by the clan, which had power to select any one
within the family lines as Tanist or successor. This in "Brehon Law"
is known as the "law of Tanistry," and was closely interwoven with the
later history of Ireland. But the class more exalted than kings or
brehons was the Bards. These were inspired singers, before whom
Brehons quailed and kings meekly bowed their heads.

During the Roman occupation of Britain in which that country was
Christianized, pagan Ireland heard nothing of the new evangel almost at
her door. But in 432, after Britain had relapsed into paganism, St.
Patrick came into the darkened isle. If ever Pentecostal fires
descended upon a nation it was in those sixty years during which one
saintly man transformed a people from {203} brutish paganism to
Christianity, and converted Ireland into the torch-bearer and nourisher
of intellectual and spiritual life, so that as the gothic night was
settling upon Europe, the centre of illumination seemed to be passing
from Rome to Ireland. Their missionaries were in Britain, Germany,
Gaul; and students from Charlemagne's dominions, and the sons of kings
from other lands, flocked to those stone monasteries, the remains of
which are still to be seen upon the Irish coast, and which were then
the acknowledged centres of learning in Europe. It was not until late
in the ninth century that Ireland played a truly great part in European
history. Rome became jealous of these fiery Christians; they had never
worn her yoke, and concerned themselves little about the Pope. They
had their own views about the shape of the tonsure, and also their own
time for celebrating Easter, which was heretical and contumacious, and
there began a struggle between Roman and Western Christianity. The
passion for art and letters which accompanied this spiritual birth
makes this, indeed, a Golden Age. But the painting of missals, and
study of Greek poetry and philosophy, {204} brought no change in the
life of the people. It was for the learned, and a subject for just
pride in retrospect. But the Christianized septs fought each other as
before, and life was no less wild and disordered than it had always
been.

In the eighth century the first viking appeared. It was then that a
master-spirit arose, a man of the clan of O'Brien--_Bria