appear based upon truth, because they accord with and explain the
peculiar customs which were found to prevail in the island at the time of
the English invasion. These traditions declare, that the original Celtic
inhabitants were subdued by an Asiatic colony, or at least by the
descendants of some Eastern people at a very remote period; they aver that
the conquerors were as inferior to the original inhabitants in numbers as
they were superior in military discipline and the arts of social life;
they describe the conquest as a work of time and trouble and assert that,
after its completion, an hereditary monarchy and hereditary aristocracy
were for the first time established in Ireland...."

"At some unknown period Ireland was divided into five kingdoms, Ulster,
Leinster, Connaught, Munster and Meath ... the latter being the property
of the paramount sovereign ..." (W. C. Taylor, History of Ireland, 1837).

John O'Neil cites "the very oldest Irish books, according to which two
brothers, the leaders of the Milesian colonization, divided Ireland into
Northern and Southern kingdom." Elsewhere he relates how a prince of the
north had been united in marriage to the princess of the south and that
"the mythical Niall-Navi-giallach of the nine treasures had had a Northern
king for father and a Southern princess for mother." Besides this
subdivision which strikingly recalls the ancient Egyptian, O'Neil brings
out the remarkable fact that definite positions in relation to each other
and the cardinal points were assigned to the five Irish kings and tells us
that "we have a fuller and later division when, in the central hall, the
miodh-chuarta of Tara, the king of Erinn sat in the centre, with his face
to the East, the king of Ulster being at his North, the king of Munster at
his South, while the king of Leinster sat opposite to him and the king of
Connaught behind him" (_op. cit._ I, 463).

I refer the reader to his extremely interesting comparison (I, p. 369) of
ancient Ireland being "an Irish instance of a Chinese 'Middle Kingdom,' "
and to the data given in connection with the great hall of Tara, which was
called Meath or Mid-court, Miodchuarta (pronounced Micorta), and the
Northern hill of Miodhchaoinn (or Midkena), guarded by Miodhchaoinn and
his three sons, the guardians of the hill being thus four in all. O'Neil
also refers to "the great idol or castrum of Kilair ... which was
surrounded by twelve smaller ones and was called