'Thirdly, all possessions in these Irish territories (before the common law of England was established through all the realm as it now is) ran at all times[6] in course of tanistry, or in course of gavelkind. Every lordship or chiefry, with the portion of land that passed with it, went without partition to the tanist, who always came in by election, or by the strong hand, and never by descent.[7] But all the inferior tenancies were partible among the males in gavelkind.'[8] [Sidenote: No estate of inheritance.] 'Again, the estate which the lord had in the chiefry, or that the inferior tenants had in gavelkind, was no estate of inheritance, but a temporary or transitory possession. For just as the next heir of the lord or chieftain would not inherit the chiefry, but the eldest and worthiest of the sept (as was before shown in the case of tanistry), who was often removed and expelled by another who was more active or stronger than he: so lands in the nature of gavelkind were not partible among the next heirs male of him who died seised, but among all the males of his sept, in this manner:-- [Sidenote: Partitions of tribal land.] 'The Canfinny, or chief of a sept (who was commonly the most ancient of the sept) made all the partitions at his discretion. This Canfinny, after the death of each tenant holding a competent portion of land, assembled all the sept, placed all their possessions in hotchpotch, and made a new partition of the whole; in which partition he did not assign to the sons of the deceased the portion which their father held, but allotted the better or larger part to each one of the sept according to his antiquity.'[9] [Sidenote: Effect of frequent partitions.] 'These portions being thus allotted and assigned were possessed and enjoyed accordingly until the next partition, which, at the discretion or will of the Canfinny, might be made at the death of each inferior tenant. And thus by these frequent partitions and the removals or translations of the tenants of one portion or another, all the possessions were uncertain, and the uncertainty of possession was the very cause that no civil habitations were erected, and no enclosure or improvement of lands made, in the Irish countries where that custom of gavelkind was in use; especially in Ulster, which seemed everywhere a wilderness before this new plantation made there by the English undertakers. And this was the fruit of this Irish gavelkind.' [Sidenote: Position of daughters and of bastard sons.] 'Also by this Irish custom of gavelkind bastards took their shares with the legitimate, and wives, on the other hand, were quite excluded from dower, and daughters took nothing, even if their father died without issue male. So that this custom differed from Kentish gavelkind in four points.'[10] [Sidenote: Four points peculiar to Irish gavelkind.]