Page:The Gaelic State in the Past & Future.djvu/25

 his triumph, at the battle of Clontarf. He had broken the O'Neill succession; and the elder branch of that dynasty were the O' Conors of Connacht. Therefore for a century a triangular dynastic dispute arose between the O'Briens, the O'Neills, and the O' Conors.

III.

polity that thus emerged consisted of a number of stateships throughout the country, each of which was a smaller reproduction of the State in which it was comprised, and each of which was a unit in the organisation of that State. Because it was a system that was competent to continue itself independently of a central authority its natural tendency was to dispense with that central authority; yet the device was such that authority, once established, was distributed from the centre down to all the branches, and was gathered from the branches up towards the centre, in a well-concerted scheme. And this proved to be the case even when the monarch was weak, independently of his personal power.

A good deal of confusion has been introduced into the understanding of old history by the way in which its records were written. Europe at that time was full of wars; and Ireland was no exception. To chroniclers in a day when personal prowess counted for much it was more important to record a battle