intermingled with the original Belgic and later Milesian
settlers in Mayo, Sligo, and Galway--thus giving a peculiar
character to that section of the country, easily
distinguishable from all the rest.

Although Hugh Allan did not imitate his father's conduct
towards ecclesiastics, he felt bound by all-ruling custom
to avenge his father's death. In all ancient countries
the kinsmen of a murdered man were both by law and custom
the avengers of his blood. The members of the Greek
_phratry_, of the Roman _fatria_, or _gens_, of the
Germanic and Anglo-Saxon _guild_, and of the mediaeval
sworn _commune_, were all solemnly bound to avenge the
blood of any of their brethren, unlawfully slain. So that
the repulsive repetition of reprisals, which so disgusts
the modern reader in our old annals, is by no means a
phenomenon peculiar to the Irish state of society. It
was in the middle age and in early times common to all
Europe, to Britain and Germany, as well as to Greece and
Rome. It was, doubtless, under a sense of duty of this
sort that Hugh V. led into Leinster a large army (A.D.
733), and the day of Ath-Senaid fully atoned for the day
of Almain. Nine thousand of the men of Leinster were left
on the field, including most of their chiefs; the victorious
monarch losing a son, and other near kinsmen. Four years
later, he himself fell in an obscure contest near Kells,
in the plain of Meath. Some of his quartrains have come
down to us, and they breathe a spirit at once religious
and heroic--such as must have greatly endeared the Prince
who possessed it to his companions in arms. We are not