It is not always easy to decide whether in Ireland matters are local rather than national. In Gaelic Ireland political power was dispersed among a large number of lordships varying in size from a province to a landed estate. Local allegiances and autonomy were usually more important than affairs at a national level. Traditional associations between family communities and localities were sometimes so strong that territorial names were originally peoples' names. In the English sphere, from the time of Richard II administrative convenience tended to visualise a feudal hierarchy on a provincial basis perhaps by analogy with the ecclesiastical structure. (There was, however, some uncertainty as to the number of provinces, Meath being for some traditional purposes the fifth province or cúige, to use the Gaelic term. Louth continued to be regarded as within the Ulster fifth until after the incorporation of Meath in Leinster when Louth was added to that province.) However, the shrinkage of the English administration in Ireland after the Bruce invasion led extensively to a breakdown of relations between local and central government. The area normally responsive to royal administration in Ireland, known from the middle of the fifteenth century as the English Pale, extending south from Carlingford Lough to Dalkey and west from the Irish sea to include most of the modern counties of Louth and Dublin as well as parts of Meath and Kildare, represents a small territory in parts of two provinces. Within the Pale and in limited areas outside, the remnants of the Anglo-Norman structure of local government survived into the sixteenth century. In most parts of Ireland, however, by 1534, the autonomous lordship was the only local authority.