Note 67 — Chapter IV · TRIBAL CUSTOM OF THE IRISH TRIBES.

The view here taken, that the four fines in the geilfine division are classes or grades of relationship, makes more intelligible the rules laid down in the Book of Aicill (iii. 331-335), especially the one which determines that ‘if one person comes up into the “geilfine” so as to make it excessive, a man must go out of it into the “deirbhfine,” and a man is to pass from one division into the other up as far as the indfine, and a man is to pass from that into the community.’ Obviously, as a fresh generation comes into the nearest hearth, a generation at the top naturally moves out of the group. The great-grandfather becomes a great-great-grandfather, and so on.