origin of this tax is surrounded with fable, but it
appears to have arisen out of the reaction which took
place, when Tuathal, "the Legitimate," was restored to
the throne of his ancestors, after the successful revolt
of the Belgic bondsmen. Leinster seems to have clung
longest to the Belgic revolution, and to have submitted
only after repeated defeats. Tuathal, therefore, imposed
on that Province this heavy and degrading tax, compelling
its Princes not only to render him and his successors
immense herds of cattle, but also 150 male and female
slaves, to do the menial offices about the palace of
Tara. With a refinement of policy, as far-seeing as it
was cruel, the proceeds of the tax were to be divided
one-third to Ulster, one-third to Connaught, and the
remainder between the Queen of the Monarch and the ruler
of Munster. In this way all the other Provinces became
interested in enforcing this invidious and oppressive
enactment upon Leinster which, of course, was withheld
whenever it could be refused with the smallest probability
of success. Its resistance, and enforcement, especially
by the kings of Munster, will be found a constant cause
of civil war, even in Christian times.

The sceptre of Ireland, from her conversion to the time
of Brian, was almost solely in the hands of the northern
Hy-Nial, the same family as the O'Neills. All the kings
of the sixth and seventh centuries were of that line. In
the eighth century (from 709 to 742), the southern
annalists style Cathal, King of Munster, Ard-Righ; in
the ninth century (840 to 847), they give the same high