The Celtic principle of division, or balance of power, is recognisable amongst the Cymri both in their older confederacies of _Deur_ and _Bryneich_, and in the later _Gwynnedd_ and _Dyved_, or North and South Wales; but it is in Ireland that the best examples are afforded of this singular peculiarity of the continual subdivision of authority. The whole country was divided as usual into North and South, or _Leth Cuin_ and _Leth Mogh_, the latter containing _Muimhean_ and _Laighean_--Munster and Leinster--each again subdivided into North and South, or _Thomond_ and _Desmond_, _Tuath-Laighean_ and _Deas-gabhar_. Ulster and Connaught were the _two_ historical provinces of the north of Ireland, _two_ kingdoms are traceable in legendary Ulster, and after _Uladh_ had ceased to share in the sovereignty of the North, _two_ families, the _Dalaraide_ and _Dal-fiatach_, long contested the supremacy within the circumscribed boundaries of the province. No sooner had the great family of the Hy Nial succeeded in monopolizing the supreme power than it was at once divided into the usual separate branches of Northern and Southern Hy Nial, each gradually subdivided into the clans of Eogan and Conal, of Colman and of Aodh Slane. The predominance of a single race was, as of old, the signal for its subdivision, even the smallest clan being subject to the divided authority of a chief and a toshach. Once every year the Gallic Druids were accustomed to meet in solemn convention at a spot within the confines of the Carnutes, which was looked upon as the centre of Gaul, and had there been such a magistrate as an annual _Vergobreith_ chosen to rule over the whole Gallic race, it is probable that he would have been inaugurated in this assembly in the same manner as the Æduan Druids consecrated the provincial _Vergobreith_, who ruled for his allotted year over that confederacy. A similar convention is traceable in Ireland under the name of the _Feas Temora_, or “Feast of Tara,” a place chosen probably for its centrical situation; and he who “held the feast” was the acknowledged _Ardrigh_ of the whole nation, the “tribes of Tara” originally holding their lands on condition of quartering the king and his followers on the occasion of the great festival. This convention, undoubtedly in its origin a Druidical meeting like the solemn assembly within the borders of the Carnutes, was still existing in Ireland in historical times, dying out towards the close of the seventh century; though the Irish annalists long continued to give the title of “king of Tara” to the _Ardrigh_, who claimed the supreme authority over the whole Irish people.