were easily confused. This tempted the _flaith_, as the system
relaxed, to extend his official power in the direction of ownership;
but never to the extent of enabling him to evict a clansman. For a
crime a clansman might be expelled from clan and territory; but,
apart from crime, the idea of eviction from one's homestead was
inconceivable. Not even when a _daer-ceile_, or "unfree peasant",
failed to make the stipulated payments could the _flaith_ do more
than sue as for any other debt; and, if successful, he was bound, in
seizing, to leave the family food-material and implements necessary
for living and recovering.

LAW OF DISTRAINING. _Athgabail_ ([)a]h-gowil) = "distress", was the
universal legal mode of obtaining anything due, or justice or redress
in any matter, whether civil or criminal, contract or tort. Every
command or prohibition of the law, if not obeyed, was enforced by
_athgabail_. The brehons reduced all liabilities of whatsoever origin
to material value to be recovered by this means. Hence its great
importance, the vast amount of space devoted to it in the laws, and
the fact that the law of distress deals incidentally with every other
branch of law and reveals best the customs, habits, and character of
the people. A claimant in a civil case might either summon his debtor
before a brehon, get a judgment, and seize the amount adjudged, or,
by distraining first at his own risk, force the defendant either to
pay or stop the seizure by submitting the matter in dispute to trial
before a brehon, whom he then could choose. There was no officer
corresponding to a sheriff to distrain and realize the amount
adjudged; the person entitled had to do it himself, accompanied by a
law-agent and witnesses, after, in "distress with time", elaborate
notices at intervals of time sufficient to allow the defendant to
consider his position and find means of satisfying the claim if he