[7] 'The election,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'was always from the _Geilfine_, or relatives within the fifth degree. Should the _Geilfine_ fail, or be all killed in battle, the _Derbfine_, or relatives from the fifth to the ninth degree, came in.' [8] 'This,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'is not right. There was the "joint undivided family" formed by the _Bo-aire_ class, or freemen possessed of cattle. The poorer _Flaths_, or heads of septs, did not gavel their possessions, but either elected a tanist or formed a "joint undivided family." When the property of an _Aire_ was not sufficient to gavel, so as to qualify one or more _Aires_, the division of the inheritance did not take place, but the parties agreed to form a "_joint_ undivided family." In such a family one was head, and as such was an _Aire_. _Bo-aires_ of this class, to avoid the gavelling of their property, elected a _Tanist_--the _Tanaise Bo-aire_. Poor and broken tribesmen, not having sufficient wealth to qualify them as _Aires_, formed a "joint-family," or _Congilda_. Every _Flath_, or head of a sept, had a tanist also. The Irish "joint-family" was an institution of great importance and of surpassing interest in the comparative history of the Aryan family.' [9] 'This account of Davies,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'is entirely wrong. The law of the distribution of the property of a deceased tribesman was most carefully laid down. No doubt then as now, and naturally more frequently then than now, a chief, or head of a sept, or of a _Treb_ (homestead) might usurp power he did not possess, and do wrong.' [10] 'Marriages in Ireland,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'were not regulated by canon law. The Irish marriage customs were in full force long after the Norman conquest. According to these customs, which appear to have been wholly uninfluenced by the canon law, bastardy was entirely different from what that term implied in countries under canon law, and in modern times. The Irish marriage customs should consequently be taken into account here, as they sanctioned a kind of polygamy, divorce, &c. See also the excommunication in 1282, by the Archbishop of Canterbury against Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, at the request of Edward I., in which the marriage customs of the Welsh, identical with those of the Irish, constitute one of the charges.' [11] _Le Résolution des justices touchant le Irish custome de gavelkind._ Reported by Sir John Davies, A.G., 3 Jac. i. [12] Dr. Sullivan believes the story of the decision against Columba to be a mere myth. [13] 'The Irish Church,' says Dr. Sullivan, 'had undoubtedly two distinct phases of monasticism: one that of the Patrician period--an obscure but highly important and interesting phase; the other, that of the sixth and subsequent centuries, to which the Irish missionaries belonged.'