Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/23

 power; and it did so continue; for with his passing the central power weakened, falling into less able hands.

With the coming of Christianity two centuries later the system received a new strength and unity. Loeghaire, the Monarch at the time, was himself a man of considerable strength and ability, and Patrick was an administrator of power and insight. The facts that the laws were revised in the general assembly at Tara, in order to bring them into conformity with the teaching of Christianity, was in itself an impetus sufficient to brace the system anew; and a further strength -was given when Patrick based his church system on the political system, making the units of one identical with the units of the other.

Only two things remain to be mentioned in the making or unmaking of the polity. After the battle of Ocha, in the year 482, the dynastic family broke, the older line continuing as kings of Connacht, while the younger line held the monarchy at Tara. While it continued at Tara, with its central situation, it could hold its authority, though, as with all monarchies, its authority depended upon the personality of the monarch. But with the abandonment of Tara, after 1560, this authority was at once weakened, having to be exerted sometimes from the far north. The system, however, continued, because its device was such that it could continue itself. The State existed, complete in all its parts, at once simple and complex, sufficient for its own maintenance; but the strong central