his Bede with little care. But that is not
surprising. Lanfranc had misread Bede, when on his authority he claimed
to be Primate of Ireland; why should not Gilbert have gone astray in
like fashion? The point to be noticed and emphasized is that the first
act of the Synod was to fix the number of the Irish sees, on the curious
principle that what the wisdom of Pope Gregory held to be good for
England would suit Ireland also.

Apparently the next step in the procedure was to determine the
distribution of the dioceses among the provinces, and to fix the see of
each prospective diocese. Ireland was divided into two portions by a
line running, approximately, from Dublin to Galway. The part to the
north of that line was known as Leath Chuinn, the part to the south as
Leath Mogha. In Leath Chuinn were the provinces of Ulster and Connaught
and the kingdom of Meath; in Leath Mogha were the provinces of Munster
and Leinster. The Synod decreed that there should be five sees in
Ulster, five in Connaught, and two in Meath, making twelve bishoprics
for Leath Chuinn; there were to be seven in Munster and five in
Leinster--twelve bishoprics for Leath Mogha. The names of all these sees
were given in the Acts of the Synod.

Finally the Synod defined the boundaries of the dioceses to which the
sees severally belonged. It is not my purpose to give a minute
description of these boundaries. That would involve an excursus on Irish
topography, which would be, to say the least, out of place. It will
suffice to indicate roughly those of the five dioceses of Ulster. To the
west was what was called the "parish" (_fairche_)[51] of Derry or
Raphoe. It was nearly identical with our diocese of Raphoe. The only
important difference is that it included Inishowen, the district between
Lough Swilly and Lough Foyle, which now belongs to the diocese of Derry.
Next to the parish of Derry or Raphoe the Synod placed the parish of
Ardstraw.[52] Ardstraw never became the see, and the diocese was
subsequently known as "of Derry." It extended eastward to the
Carntougher Mountains, and coincides pretty closely with the present
diocese. It subsequently gained Inishowen from its western neighbour,
and the strip between the Carntougher Mountains and the Bann from its
eastern neighbour. But otherwise it remains much as the Synod of
Rathbreasail determined. Next to it was to be the parish of Connor or
Down. When the portion of it to the west of the Bann was transferre