To supply, at least to some extent, this information is the main purpose of the present volume, which the author fears has been very inadequately carried into effect, and its publication has been from unavoidable causes delayed much beyond the period when it ought to have appeared. It was commenced two years ago, when its progress was interrupted partly owing to his illness, under the depressing influence of which part of the volume has indeed been written, but mainly because the publication of the fourth volume of the Ancient Irish Laws, which was to contain tracts relating to the early land tenure in Ireland, had likewise been unavoidably delayed, and the author felt that, without consulting these tracts, he could not satisfactorily treat of the old tribal system from which the ancient Celtic land tenures in Scotland derived their origin, and without a knowledge of which their true character could hardly be ascertained. The author was, however, at length enabled to complete this part of his volume through the courtesy of the editor, who, with the kind permission of the Lord Bishop of Limerick, chairman of the Brehon Law Commission, communicated to him the proof-sheets of the text and translation of these tracts, but it was not till after this volume had in the main been printed, and was almost through the press, that the fourth volume of the Ancient Laws of Ireland was at length published, and the author had any opportunity of reading the introduction; and thus in compiling that part of his volume he had unfortunately not the benefit of the learned editor’s commentary upon these tracts. The author has to record his thanks to his friends: Mr. Alexander Carmichael for the instructive account of three of the Long Island townships embodied in the last chapter; W. M. Hennessy, Esq., of the Public Record Office, Dublin, for the curious poem relating to the Kingdom of the Isles, with its translation; and Captain Thomas for the old description of the Isles, both printed in the Appendix, Nos. II. and III. He has also, as formerly, to thank Mr. John Taylor Brown for his ready aid in revising his proof-sheets; and he takes this opportunity when completing his work of recording his sense of the valuable assistance and advice he has received throughout from his excellent publisher, Mr. David Douglas. The volume containing the History and Ethnology of the kingdom was brought down to the end of the reign of Alexander the Third, the last of the old dynasty of Celtic monarchs, which terminated with his death in the year 1284, and it is with the same reign that our narrative in treating of the ‘Land and People’ must now commence. EDINBURGH, 27 INVERLEITH ROW, _1st October 1880_. TABLE OF CONTENTS. ------- BOOK III. _LAND AND PEOPLE_. CHAPTER I.