‘If the _Geilfiné_ and _Deirbhfiné_ both become extinct, three-fourths of their _dibad_ shall go to the _Iarfiné_, and one-fourth to the _Indfiné_. ‘If the _Indfiné_ and _Iarfiné_ both become extinct, three-fourths of their _dibad_ shall go to the _Deirbhfiné_, and one-fourth to the _Geilfiné_. ‘If the _Deirbhfiné_ and _Iarfiné_ have both become extinct, three-fourths of their _dibad_ shall go to the _Geilfiné_, and one-fourth to the _Indfiné_. ‘If the _Geilfiné_ and _Indfiné_ have both become extinct, three-fourths of the _dibad_ of the _Geilfiné_ shall go to the _Deirbhfiné_, and one-fourth of it to the _Iarfiné_; three-fourths of the _dibad_ of the _Indfiné_ shall go to the _Iarfiné_, and one-fourth to the _Deirbhfiné_.’ This seems to exhaust all possible combinations, and some provisions follow which are not very easily understood; but when it is added, ‘And the whole number of the seventeen men are then forthcoming, and if they be not, there shall be no partition, but the nearest of kin shall take it,’ the meaning seems to be that the group of seventeen persons must be made up in each case, but if that cannot be done, there is no partition of the _dibad_ to the person nearest in degree to the extinct family. We are also told that ‘the _Geilfiné_ is the youngest and the _Indfiné_ the oldest,’ and that ‘if one person has come up into the _Geilfiné_ so as to make it excessive, that is, more than five persons, a man must go out of it up into the _Deirbhfiné_, and a man is to pass from one _Finé_ into the other up as far as the _Indfiné_, and a man is to pass from that into the _Duthaig n-Daine_ or community.’[201] It is exceedingly difficult to form anything like a clear conception of the true nature of what appears to be so highly artificial an arrangement, and it is probable that if it ever really existed in its entirety, it must soon have broken down under the various modifications which the natural progress of society brought to bear upon the community. So far as we can gather, there seems undoubtedly to have been the tie of kindred among themselves, and between them and the chief; and a portion of the territory of the _Flath_ appears to have been assigned to them under the name of _dibad_, the portion occupied by each group being possessed in common by its members, so that it was only when the subordinate groups became extinct that a redistribution of it took place. [Sidenote: Members of the four families.]