by the distinction between murder and manslaughter and by other circumstances; but in no case was a violent death, however innocent, allowed to pass without reparation being made.  A fine was awarded out of the property of the convict or of his fine to the fine of the person slain, in the proportions in which they were entitled to inherit his property, that being also according to their degrees of kinship and the degrees in which they were really sufferers.  This gave every clan and every clansman, in addition to their moral interest, a direct monetary interest in the prevention and suppression of crime.  Hence the whole public feeling of the country was entirely in support of the law, the honor and interest of community and individual being involved in its maintenance.  The injured person or fine, if unable to recover the fine, might, in capital cases, seize and enslave, or even kill, the convict.  Probably restrained by the fact that, there being no officers of criminal law, they had to inflict punishment themselves, they sometimes imprisoned a convict in a small island, or sent him adrift on the sea in a currach or boat of hide.  Law supported by public opinion, powerful because so inspired, powerful because unanimous, was difficult to evade or resist.  It so strongly armed an injured person, and so utterly paralyzed a criminal, that escape from justice was hardly possible.  The only way in which it was possible was by flight, leaving all one’s property behind, and sinking into slavery in a strange place; and this in effect was a severe punishment rather than an escape.

FOREIGN LAW.  The Danes and other Norsemen were the buccaneers of northwestern Europe from the eighth to the eleventh century.  They conquered and settled permanently in Neustria, from them called Normandy, and conquered and ruled for a considerable time England and part of Scotland and the Isles.  In Ireland they were little more than marauders, having permanent colonies only round the coast; always subject, nominally at least, to the ard-ri or to the local chief; paying him tribute when he was strong, raiding his territory when he was weak, and fomenting recurrent disorder highly prejudicial to law, religion, and civilization.  They never made any pretence of extending their laws to Ireland, and their attempt to conquer the country was finally frustrated at Clontarf in 1014.

The Anglo-Norman invaders also seized the seaports.  The earlier of them who went inland partially adopted in the second generation the Gaelic language, laws, and customs; as many non-Celtic Lowlanders of Scotland about the same period adopted the Gaelic language, laws, and customs of the Highlanders.  Hence they did not make much impression on the Gaelic system, beyond the disintegrating effect of their imperfect adoption of it.