The only unsettled question which remained after the
Assembly at Drom-Keth related to the Prince of Ossory.
Five years afterwards (A.D. 595), King Hugh fell in an
attempt to collect the special tribute from all Leinster,
of which we have already heard something, and shall, by
and by, hear more. He was an able and energetic ruler,
and we may be sure "did not let the sun rise on him in
his bed at Tara," or anywhere else. In his time great
internal changes were taking place in the state of society.
The ecclesiastical order had become more powerful than
any other in the state. The Bardic Order, thrice proscribed,
were finally subjected to the laws, over which they had
at one time insolently domineered. Ireland's only colony
--unless we except the immature settlement in the Isle
of Man, under Cormac Longbeard--was declared independent
of the parent country, through the moral influence of
its illustrious Apostle, whose name many of its kings
and nobles were of old proud to bear--_Mal-Colm_, meaning
"servant of Columb," or Columbkill. But the memory of
the sainted statesman who decreed the separation of the
two populations, so far as claims to taxation could be
preferred, preserved, for ages, the better and far more
profitable alliance, of an ancient friendship, unbroken
by a single national quarrel during a thousand years.

A few words more on the death and character of this
celebrated man, whom we are now to part with at the close
of the sixth, as we parted from Patrick at the close of
the fifth century. His day of departure came in 596.
Death found him at the ripe age of almost fourscore,