Ogam Inscriptions in Ireland, Scotland, and ... - House of Dubhros

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PREFACE.IN the autumn of 1884, Sir Samuel Ferguson, President ofthe Royal Irish Academy, delivered in Edinburgh the RhindLectures on Archaeology, and at the request of the committeehe selected for his subject " Ogham Inscriptions." He hadfor many years taken a keen interest in this form of writing,which consists of notches of various lengths cut on the edge orarris of suitable stones, generally unhewn, and frequentlystandTng~pillars of striking dimensions. These are found uTcertain districts of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, including theislands of Orkney and Shetland, and iifa few instances in southwesternEngland, and in the Isle of Man. The Ogham boarsa certain resemblance to the" Scandinavian Rune. Both seemdesignedly obscure, although in ancient Irish manuscripts akey to the interpretation of Ogham is given. In some cases,as in South Wales for instance, epigraphs in Roman charactersoccupy the face of the stone, while - Ogham-writing on theedges has been found to contain an echo of the same. Itwill readily be understood that the value of these bi-tingualexamples, as a test of correct rendering of the Ogham, is verygreat.The stones are generally to be met with in remote and uncultivateddistricts, not unfrequently in disused churchyard^reserved for the burial of unbaptized children and suicides./'On land more valuable for agriculture they have been brokenup, or removed for safety to the vicinity of the nearest church,or set up in private demesnes. In Ireland many of these inscribedstones are found on the summits of lofty mountains oron lonely moors ; they abound on the rugged storm-sweptpromontories which, on the 'south and west of the island, arewashed by the Atlantic. Again, others are found on the elevatedtracts of comparatively barren land which form the

VIPREFACE.water-sheds of the Southern rivers and divide their basins,notably those of the Blackwater, Lee, and Bandon.For many yearsit had been the habit of Sir SamuelFerguson to spend his summer holiday in visiting these monuments.His time and energies for the rest of the year weredevoted to his professional or official duties, but his annualvacation was consecrated to the pursuit of poetry,literature,or antiquities. The sedentarylife of the city was then laidaside, and the long summer days were passed driving aboutthe country, in search of these and kindred objects of interest.The rough accommodation and honiely fare which theseexcursions often entailed, were not without their attractionfor him ;his genial nature was happy in simple intercoursewith his fellow-man, while the varied beauties of the externalworld ever gave to him deep and keen delight. Year afteryear every nook and corner of Ireland and Wales was thusexplored.In his earlier expeditions,Sir Samuel had tocontent himselfwith rubbings and careful copies of the Ogham inscriptions,which were afterwards carried home and studied atleisure ;but in these there were elements of uncertainty anderror which made them far from satisfactory. On more thanone occasion, finding the reading doubtful, Sir Samuel hastaken the night train and started off from his home to thedistant spot where the stone was to be found, in order toverify a single letter. Later he adopted a method of makingpaper casts, which obviated these uncertainties, and Securedan entirely accurate facsimile of the stone with all its markings.The process is simple, and may be described for the benefitof others. The stone to be operated uponis first cleared oflichen and washed clean with water. Then a sheet of unsizedpaper (good thick blotting paper leaves nothing to be desired)is laid over the inscription, and slightly moistened with asponge. A soft brush an old hat brush is best is thenapplied to the paper. It is patted gently till it sinks into everycrevice and marking of the stone. Should the indentation beso deep as to break the surface of the paper, a fragment suitablein size must be torn off a fresh sheet, freed from anymargin, applied to the broken surface, wetted, and duly

PREFACE.Vllpatted with the brush until it becomes amalgamated with thepulp-like paper. Then a coat of paste must be lightly brushedover the entire surface of the paper covering the inscription,a second sheet of blotting paper laid on, and the process ofslightly moistening and patting repeated. This must be permitted,as far as practicable, to dry upon the stone hence the;advisability of making the paper as little moist as possible.This cast, when dry, becomes as firm as cardboard, and canbe easily lifted and removed. It retains every marking inintaglio and in relief, according as it is studied from the insideor the outside.One day typical of many others at the close of a holidayspent by Sir Samuel Ferguson and his wife in exploring theantiquities of Kerry, Dunmore Head was visited. This is a noblemountain on the extreme western verge of the island, which,as well as itsneighbour mountain, Brandon Head, bears onits summit a fine Ogham-inscribed pillar stone. A long drivefrom Dingle brought the little party to the base of the mountain.Here they dismounted and ascended on foot, while thedriver led the horse over the grassy slopes as far as it waspossible for a vehicle to travel. At the homestead of a farmeron the mountain side, a halt was called. With kindly graceboth horse and man were here made welcome to a rest, whilethe sons of the house shouldered the box which contained thepreparations for cast-taking, and led the way up the steepprecipitous path, over crags and boulders, until the summitwas gained. The prospect which lay before the eye was of abeauty never to be forgotten.The Blasket Islands lay below,fringed with the white foam of Atlantic waves the broad,boundless, heaving floor of ocean stretching beyond, unbrokenby any land nearer than America. On one of thebold headlands of the Dingle Peninsula, not far distant,stood Smerwick Fort, where the hapless Spanish garrison,hemmed in by the overwhelming forces of Queen Elizabeth'sDeputy, Lord Grey,* was obliged to capitulate, in the summerof 1580, only to meet in cold blood their wretched fate.Looking inland from Dunmore lay the picturesque region of* Amoncrst Lord Grey's troops were many names dear to fame Sir Walter Raleigh,K'liinind Spenser, &c.

VlllPREFACE.Corkaguiny, studded with those mysterious monuments of aremote past which had attracted Sir Samuel Ferguson hither,and amongst which he had spent some previous weeks.*After some diligent work a fine cast of the pillar-stone onDunmore Head was taken, but before it was yet dry enough toremove, a furious gale arose, accompanied by torrents of rain.The stone was quickly enveloped in waterproof and greatcoat, whilst their owners, denuded of them, and regardless ofthe storm, stood close, so as still further to protect the preciouscast. By and by the storm abated, but not until the daywas already far spent, and the deepening shadows threatenedto benight the party in their dangerous position on the wildmountain. Cautiously the cast was loosened the protectingwaterproof still held over it, but it was moist and pulpy.At last, at the most critical moment, when about to be transferredto the box, a sudden gust of wind got under, and in aninstant it was carried aloft. The toilers stood dismayed,watching its gyrations in upper air until the precious thing,torn to pieces, was whirled into the Atlantic !Weary, wet,and disappointed, they descended the mountain to the house,where horse and car were waiting ;here the travellers founda hospitable meal of tea and eggs prepared, for which theirkindly hosts would receive no payment ; warmed and fedthey continued their way, returning on the following day,when, under bright sun and fair sides, a wholly successfulcast of the stone was made, and carried off in safety.The spoils of a summer holiday were the material for awinter's work. During the last months of Sir Samuel's life,when health had given way, and he was no longer ableto move about as of old, he would have the casts brought tohis bedside, and with feeble hands he would turn and examinethem, and endeaveur to unravel their true significance. Aslong as he could hold a pen, he continued to add to andcorrect the proofs of these Lectures. Those on Irish Oghamswere revised by him, but the chapters011 Welsh and Scottishinscribed-stones had not been fully annotated when he died.* This group contains the singular Christian edifice of Gallerus. Also a beautifulchurch probably erected in the twelfth century, containing exquisite decorative ornament.This ruined church of Kilrnalkedar is a fine example of the Irish Romanesque.

PREFACE.ixSince his death, three friends whom he loved and esteemedin life have been good enough to read the sheets of tjieseLectures Dr. Ingram, LL.D., Vice-President of the RoyalIrish Academy, S.F.T.C.D. Dr.; Anderson, Keeper of theNational Museum of the Antiquaries of Scotland ; and, asregards two chapters, Dr. Whitley Stokes, D.C.L. To thesegentlemen, friends and scholars, the warmest thanks are due,and are here tendered.Sir Samuel Ferguson had not personally examined themonuments of Scotland. He knew them only from rubbingsand casts made by others. The latter portion of this bookmust, therefore, be deemed comparatively imperfect. Indeedhe would himself have been the first to acknowledge thetentative character of the work, and probably have consideredthat the data are as yet too limited to justify scholarsin formulating absolute conclusions. He claims only the"credit of having supplied their researches with approximatelyauthentic data in the texts presented." He mightjustly have laid claim to more than this, for he made with hisown hands casts of nearly all the Oghams in Ireland, England,and Wales. One hundred and sixty-three of these casts havebeen photographed under his superintendence.for theRoyalIrish Academy, and of these, some twenty-one have alreadybeen published in the 27th volume of their Transactions.Whenever the Academy completes the series, scholars willhave before them, for reference, indisputable facsimiles ofthese Ogham-inscribed stones as they now exist.No one could be more candid, modest, or free from dogmatismthan was Sir Samuel Ferguson. In all his instincts hewas disinterested, true, generous, and noble. He died as hehad lived, revered and beloved, and enjoying in full measurethat which should accompany old "age Honour, love,obedience, troops of friends." M. C. F.20 NOBTH GREAT GEORGE'S-STREBT, DUBLIN,DECEMBER, 1886.A2

CONTENTS.CHAPTER I.Ogham Inscriptions in Great Britain and Ireland Those verified from casts representedin Roman capital letters ;those less certain, in Italic The Ogham of thesame family with the Runic alphabet According to the Irish tradition introducedfrom Northern Europe by the Tuatha de Dauaan colonists Difficulties in readingthese Inscriptions Labours of Petrie, O'Donovan, Windele, Brash, H organ,Graves, Hitchcock, Du Noyer, Haigh, Atkinson, Rhys Necessity of authentictexts Paper casts easily photographed The main question dealt with, Whetherthe Ogham is of Pagan or Christian origin ? &c. - Pages 1-18CHAPTER II.Ogham-inscribed Monuments of Ireland in the County of Kerry, Barony of CorkaguinyRath-cave, Rathmalode Colonel Lane Fox's description of Rath-cave ofRoovesmore Lougher Lintel Stone Stone Cross, Ballynahunt : Ogham undergroundLeabhar-na-h-Uidhre : identification of the burial place of EochaidArgthec Inscriptions at Ballynahunt Ballinvoher Brackloon BallintarmonGortnegullanagh Lugnagappul Aglish Aghacarrible Cave materialsbrought from cemeteries called Killeens used; only for the burials of unbaptisedchildren and suicides Inscriptions at Kinard Trabeg Ballintaggart BallynesteenigEmlagh West Burnham House Kilfountain Maumanorigh Cahirna-gatTemple Me iiahan Tyvoria Duiimore, or Clogher Head Pages 19-41CHAPTER III.Ogham inscriptions at Ballyneanig, Ballinrannig, Burnham The church, and Oghaminscribedtombstone at Kilmalkedar Dry-stone church at Gallerus Kills andKilleens sepulchral Leges Barbarorum Ogham-inscribed stone on BrandonMountain, and at Clonsharagh, Martramane, Camp Slieve Mish, with its fort ofCahir-Conree Story of Blanaid Dividing line between the Oghamic and non-Oghamic districts of Ireland coincident with the limits of the Patrician missionOghams of Kerry, Limerick, and Clare Knockfierna inscription Ogham onCallan Mountain Memorial pillar at Knockastoolery Monuments at ClonmacnoisRath Croghan ; its associations with Queen Maeve Oghams at Brestagh,Topped, Castlederg, Aghascribba Monument on Knock Many, or Hill of Bani ;supposed sepulchre of Queen Baui, wife of Teuthal Techtmar, whose deathand burial on Knock Many is recorded in the Annals under the year A.D.Ill - - Pages 42-63CHAPTER IV.Armagh, chief seat of the Patrician church Inscribed dolmen at Lennan MullochOgham Sepulchral cairns at Slieve- na-Calliagh; Tailten the Irish Olympia, celebratedfor its games, &c. The Boyne tumuli New; Grange Castletimon

CONTEXTS.XIOgham Donard ;one of the three Christian churches founded by Palladius A.D.430-1 Killeen Cormac : its connection with Duftach Macculugar, companionof St. Patrick : the burying place of his sept The Hy-Lugair and Hy-Cormaic,descendants of Cucorb, King of Leinster, slain AD. 119 Ogham-inscribed stonesat Killeen Cormac, Gowran, Claragh, Dunbell, Ballyboodan, Windgap, Ballyvooney,Island, Drumlohan ;cave under its Killeen containing several Oghamlegends Kilgrovan Ardmore ; its Round Tower Saint Declan's Bed, hispedigree- -Pages 64-84CHAPTER V.Monument at Kiltera Old Church of Seskinan Ogham-inscribedstones SalterBridge, Glenawillen, Knockboy, Burntfort, Greenhill, Bweeng, MonataggartAllusions to Ogham cited by the Bishop of Limerick from the BrehonLaws Ogham-inscribed stone, Kilcullen Imposing megalithic monument atBarrachauran Aghabulloge St. Olan's : pillar stone : identification of St. Olanwith the " institutor " of St. Finbarr, of Cork; who died A.D. 621 Oghams atKnockrour, Liads, Glounaglogh, Tulligmore, Ballyhauk, Koovesmore, Garranes,Cooldorrihy, Knockouran Ogham-inscribed pillar-stone selected by Mr. Windelefor his own monument Shanacloon, Coomliath, Kilcaskan, Ballycrovane,Cappagh, Lomanagh, Gortnacaree ; pillar stone now at Adare Manor Derrygurrane,Dromkeare, Killogrone ;now transferred to Cahirciveen, Killeenadreena" Galeotas" inscribed stone amoug the mountains near Lough Carra Killeenat Kilcolaght Ogham stone at Kilgobinet Whitefield Cave at DunloeRuined church of Kilbonane ;monument removed to Adare Manor Rath caveTinnahally Pillar stones Ardywanig Rath-cave at Keel :pillar removed toCorkaboy- - Pages 85-112CHAPTER VI.The British Oghams frequently accompanied by Roman epigraphs The LaugharOgham in Wales, inscribed on base of Roman altar Bi-lingual inscriptions atCwm Gloyn, Usk Park, Treffgarn Pillar stones at St. Dogmael's, Llanfechan,Clydai, Cilgerran, Ruthin Ogham-inscribed stones in Devon That at Tavistockbrought from Roborough Down, near Buckland-Monachorum Fardel stone nowin British Museum Welsh Oghams at Llandawke, Trallong, Dugoed, Llanwinio,now at Middleton Hall Bi-lingual stone on Caldey Island Pillar stones atBridell, Kenfigg, near Pyle Sculptured figure on Llywell stone, now in BritishMuseum, compared with that on the Maen Achwnfaen, near Mostyn, in Flintshire- -Pages 113-132CHAPTER VII.Scottish Oghams differ from those in Ireland, Wales, and England ShetlandOghams ; Lunnasting : St. Ninian's : Bressay Orkney ; Burrian, Aberdeenshire;Newton :Logic : Aboyne Scoonie stone in Fifeshire Golspie inSutherland ..-......-.* Pages 133-154INDEX TO OGHAM LEGENDS - - Page 155INDEX - - Page 158

CHAPTER I.Ogham Inscriptions in Great Britain and Ireland Those verified from casts repre-of thesented in Roman capital letters ;those less certain, in Italic The Oghamsame family with the Kunic alphabet According to the Irish tradition introducedin readingfrom Northern Europe by the Tuatha de Danaan colonists Difficultiesthese Inscriptions Labours of Petrie, O'Donovan, Windele, Brash, Horgan,Graves, Hitchcock, Du Noyer, Haigh, Atkinson, Rhys Necessity of authentictexts Paper casts easily photographed The main question dealt with, Whetherthe Ogham is of Pagan or Christian origin ? &c.1. THE only Celtic Monumental Inscriptions in these islands,which can at the present day be said to need further elucidation,are those conceived in the Ogham form of writing. Oghaminscrip-tumscontribute some additions andFurther study and inquiry maycorrections, but, that anything substantial remains to be donefor a satisfactory general acquaintance with Scottish, Welsh, orIrish inscriptional antiquities of the ordinary alphabetic kind,seems unlikely. We shall, therefore, be concerned in thepresent inquiry with the Ogham variety, and such topics aslegitimately associate themselves with To it.present perfectpictures of Ogham inscriptions would require the reproductionof photographs taken from casts of the originals. A from castsfasciculus of twenty-five such reproductions has been printedof its 27th volume ofby the Royal Irish Academy as partTransactions, not yet published. Instead of these costly illustrations,the readers of the present work will, I hope, be contentwith the reproduction in Roman print of those examples represented inwhich I can personally vouch for from casts mostly in my Romau Prmtpossession.In the primary transliteration of these, the Romancapital will be employed for such characters as are certain,the Italicised capital for such as are presumable from remainingindications, and the Roman minuscule where the indicationshave wholly disappeared, and the lacunae are filleduphypothetically. Where alternative powers have to be represented,the several letters will be arranged vertically, theB

2 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSnot from casts, mOre probable above. For such examples as I cannot sovouch, Italicised minuscules will be employed.2. Monuments so inscribed exist to the number of nearlytwo hundred in Ireland. There are eighteen in Wales, twoin South England, at least six on the mainland of Scotland,Key preserved, and four in the Orkney and Shetland Islands. The generalkey to the reading has been traditionally preserved in Ireland ;and could be re-constructed, if necessary, from the Romanon theepigraphs which accompany and echo the Oghamsbiliteral monuments of Wales. The subjects of the texts arealmost exclusively proper names connected by the word Maqi,accepted as meaning '* son of." Although a series of propernames is not calculated to excite much interest in the abstract,there are historical and palaeographic considerations whichgivethese monuments a claim on the attention of Britishnot much inferior to that of the Rune for Scandi-archa3ologistsnavian scholars.Related to the 3. The Ogham is to this extent of the same family with theRune, that the characteristic of both kinds of writingis the employmentof straight strokes easily carved on wood or stone forforming the alphabetic letters. The original Runic alphabet,however, is not, like the Ogham, of a cryptic nature; butit is the foundation on which the cryptic Tree-Runes, havingseveral points of resemblance to the Ogham, are founded.Rune, in the northern languages as well as in the Celtic,signifies something secret, but the Futhorc or Scandinavianalphabet cannot be said to be more secret or mysteriousthan any other, and, if it bore the name of Rune in its originalstate, it probably was because alphabetic writing of any kindwas deemed a mystery by the northern populations to whom itwas firstimparted, or by those amongst whom it mayhave beenTree-Rune first invented. The Tree-Rune, however, founded on it,is adesignedly secret and highly artificial kind of writing. TheFuthorc (so called from commencing with F, U, Th, O, R, C)consists of sixteen letters, represented, in the Tree-Rune, byan equal number of characters formed in this way. TheFuthorc is arranged in three divisions the first of six letters,five, T, B, L, M, Y. These divisions or categories are known

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND.as Frey's Aett (sort or kind), Hagel's Aett, and Tyr's Aett.The corresponding cryptic characters are conceived in theform of trees or upright stems with branches. The branchesissuing from the side of the stem to the spectator's left, whichmay be called the index side, indicate the number of theAett or division of the Futhorc in which the letter isfound;those issuing from the opposite side, indicate the number of theletter in its division, as first to sixth in the first Aett, andfirst to fifth in the two others. As, if it were required toexpress the syllableMAN in Tree-Runes, M would be representedby a stem having three branches to the spectator's left,to indicate the third category, and four branches to the right,because in that category M stands fourth. A would have twobranches on the one side and four on the other, as indicatingthe second category, and fourth place in it; and N, in likemanner, would be shown to be second of the second, thusOr, cross-lines being drawn, branches may be shown issuingto the right from one extremity and to the left from the other,each bar of the cross thus serving for a separate Runic letter,and as many crosses as there are pairs of letters in the legendmay be engraved lattice-wise on the face of the monument ;or, yet a third way, on the worm-band or ribbon formed bythe outline of the snake which generally enters into the ornamentationof a Norse sculptural monument, digits may beshown,IIIHillsome of which cross the half and some the whole of its width,the former indicating the Aett, and the latter the sub-numberin the Aett of the letter so represented.

4 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSAnalogous for- 4. In the Ogham, a process of much the same kind seemsfto have beenOghamadopted, not on the foundation of the Futhorc,but of another alphabet differing from the Futhorc both in thenames, numbers, and sequences of its letters. This is the Irishon Bethiuis- Bethluisnion an alphabet designated altogether by names ofnion alphabet. trees> but represented, in itsOghamic equivalents, by straightstrokes, the significance of which depends primarily on a divisionof the Bethluisnion into like categories as the Futhorc, with thisdifference, that, in preparing the Bethluisnion for its relationswith tfiese it isequivalents, divided into Tour categories of fiveeach, thus B, L, F S, N ; H, D, T, C, Q ; M, G, NG, ST, R ;A, O, U, E, I, which divisions, also, as in the Futhorc, havetheir names of the B * 'aicme (kind or following), the H *M'aicme, the *aicme, and the A * aicme. So far the resemblancesare obvious. In the next step,in which, instead of theseveral stems of the Tree-Runes, one common stem line isprovided for all the characters, the resemblance is still discernible;and in the ultimate arrangement, by which the straightstrokes or digits of the Ogham are given their alphabetic valuesby reference to this stem line, the parallelism, although notso obvious, still exists. In the Ogham, the letters of each aicmelire represented by a set of strokes beginning with a .singledigit, and increasing in progressive order from one to five;and according as these digits and groups of digits are arrangedunder, over, across, or on the stem line, they represent theletters of the first, second, third, and fourth aicmes respectively,pn the plan of one digit for the first letter, two for the second,and so on to five digits for the fifth letter of each aicme; thus''in in tin inn'" '" "" m /#JM0MirHere we see the same guiding principles of numerical andlocal relation determining the values both of the Ogham andthe Tree-Rune, although with differences in their applicationwhich make it difficult, notwithstanding the other pointsof resemblance, to say that either systemis derived from theother, although both might well be thought to have originatedin some older common parentage. If either is to be deemed a

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 5derivative, it is, most probably, the Tree-Rune, of which, Ibelieve, no examples have been found older than those ofMaeshow, belonging to the period of the Jerusalem pilgrimages.5._But the Irish Bethluisnion does not exist, as the Futhorc NO oriinaldoes, in the form of a lettered original alphabet.None but 2Roman and Ogham letters have, as yet, been found on theCeltic monuments of these islands. The Bethluisnion is onlya vocabulary of letter-names adaptable to the letter-signs eitherof the Roman alphabet or of the fuller and, it is thought, the 4*older form of the Futhorc. If the Futhorc and Tree-Rune behas beenexcluded, we should conclude that the Oghamfounded on the Roman alphabet, re-named and marshalledinto the Beihluisnion sequence. The account, however, which Ogbam allegedthe Irish themselves give of it is, that it was brought in by the b^f -nearly half-mythical colony of the Tuatha de Danaan, whom theybring from the northern parts of the world through ^Gotland. -$rwhich seems6. There is one feature in the Oghamto establish that its framers were of the Latin rather thanthe Teutonic branch of the European family. The * h 'aicme (h, d, t, c, q) is apparently an anagramdrawn from the partly anainitialletters of the cardinal numbers, one, two, three, four, granjlJ 'Uc>five that is, in insular Celtic speech, Jicen, da, tri, cathar, cuig.Whether it was an original lost Irish alphabet, a Futhorc ofthe longer sort, or the Latin alphabet of the Romans thatformed the foundation for the Ogham, it must be recognisedthat the people who adjustedit to its fourfold division andlocative values in the Oghamic system did not express theirnumerals ' four " or " five " with an initial p,as Teutonic or not TeutonicCymric speakers probably would have done. A fifth division or (J ) mric -of five further signs for the shorter expression of the diphthongshas been added, at a later date. It is called the Forfeada or The Forjiada.11over-trees," as being supplementary,and does not enter intothe older examples.X o )X(The first and third of these are the only ones I have found inlapidary use.7. If derived from the Rune, its framers have not

OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSits disadvan-succeeded in improving on the original, either in perspicuousnessor fi tness f'witT'dier monumental use. The Ogham is very muchiiune, more cumbrous than the Futhorc, and, notwithstanding theapparent simplicity of its arrangement, has an inherent elementof uncertainty, unknown, I believe, in any other alphabet.The distinctive shapes of the letters of the Futhorc, and theslope of the Tree-Rune branches, always assure us againstreading the letter-band upside down, or, in the Futhorc,in an order reverse to that intended by the carver. But theuncertainty nature of the Ogham is such, that a digit or group of digitswmcn looked at from one side, appears below the line, willappear above it, and express a different letter, if looked at fromthe other ;and that, unless there be some sign,as in old Oghamthere never is, to indicate from which end of the legend thereading is to commence, a trial reading must be made from eachend as well as each si

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 7reading in its beginning may be discredited by an unintelligibleending. The Mount Brandon inscription, in the same districtof Kerry, which gives along the northern arris of its west facethe word Cruimthir, the old Irish equivalent of Presbyterin the Oghamic form Qrrimitir, where carried over the headof the stone and returned down the southern arris seems tomake this Presbyter the son of Somogaq a name unlike anythinglikely to be authentic, but which, as pointed out by theBishop of Limerick, is really the well-known name Comogan inthe altered adjustment due to achange of the reader's position.Thus, though an Ogham digit or group of digits has nothingper8e to show which istop or which bottom, the right positionand sequences of such a legend can generally, after a littleexperience, be ascertained.9. An example of a legend conceived throughoutin retrogradesequence is afforded by a very fine Ogham pillar-stonenow in the Lapidary Museum of the Royal Irish Academy.Itis one of a group of similar monuments dug up from a cave atMonataggart, i^the parish of Donoughmore, in the northern to retrogradepart of East Cork. Read upward from below, with its inscribed sequence,angle facing the spectator's left, it yields the impracticablesequencetenrenmonoigduqdeggef,but, on being read from the opposite side of the arris withinverse values, it gives the legendfeqreq moqoi glunlegget,being in commemoration of some Fiachra (genitive Feqreq),to whom the designations Mocoi and Glunlegget, the latterprobably signifying the ** Kneeler," seem to be ascribed ;andso of several other retroverse and inverted readings of thesame kind.!. Again, where the Rune-Smith could fall into no confusionof letter-forms unless he desired to exhibit a deliberateligature or siglum where one character should have the force ofseveral letters, the Ogham carver, in engraving some of hisgroups, had to encounter the difficulty of accurate spacing, lest,in writing, let us say, two B's or two D's or two M's, he should

8 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONS" ' ' Mil II II// f /II I- Ito inexact not make them so close as to appear J, c, or g, respectively ; as,spaciugs,or exam pi e) jn the Lunnasting Ogham in the Museum of theSociety of Antiquaries of Scotland, it is doubtful whether thereading should be agofest or ammofest; owing to the indecisionof the carver in the spacing of these two stem crossing digitswhich make mm or g according to the greater or less distancebetween them. This source of error is even more troublesomein long vocalic groups, where points which make severalvowels succeed one another, without distinctions of space.A fine Ogham pillar from Kerry, now in the Museum ofTrinity College, Dublin, exemplifies this and another sourceof ambiguity in Ogham writing originating in the carelessnessor caprice of the scribe. The arrises of the pillar are rounded,and the value ot the characters depends on their relation tothe general line of convexity. Two groups, each of sevenequally-spaced digits, occur in the text, and some others areBO ambiguously placed in relation to the medial ridge as toleave it doubtful whether we are to read the diphthongs oi,io, eu, or in some other of the various combinations of whichthey are capable and whether, having regard to the relations;of the other groups to the ridge, we are to read them eedduinior seddacini.to the use of ">i 11. But the practice of using the natural stem line of the arristurns for stem- jias ]Q& to even greater difficulties of decipherment than theseinherent uncertainties of. the system. In every cubical block itis the arris that first gets chipped and abraded. In blocks oflaminated rock the adjacent faces on either side of the linedisintegrate unequally, and one half of a stem-crossing digitmay sometimes disappear, while the other half is plainly visible ;as in the first proposed example now represented vertically asit would appear on the arris of an upright pillarHere the loss of the half-digit to the left of, or above, the line,

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND.would leave the letters forming ban, of the half-digit to theright, or below the line, those forming han. Or, weathering and to weathering,erosion may wholly obliterate a digit, and in many such cases callinto existence a new letter, as, if one digit be taken from the concludingN, the remainder makes S, and one from S makes F, andone from F leaves L. There exists a very grand and imposingblock of conglomerate at Ballyquin, near Carrick-on-Suir, inthe County of Waterford, which appears to have once borne,in largely-proportioned shallow digits, the legend Catabar,moqo Firiquorr(b). But the final groups are only visible in afavourable light,and some of the digits retain their outlinesmore distinctly about the middle point of their length, and somight in some lights and to some eyes appear as vowels. Theterminal group has so come to be read as if Cathbar were theson of Firiqongo, where the name commemorated is that ofto cross-frac-Cathbar the son of Fercorb. The cross fractures, again, towhich such monuments are subject, may take away some digitsof a group and leave others. As, at Templemanahan,fracture at the top of the stone has left three over-line digitsa terminalture 'of what the context shows were probably four ; and, at Ardmore,three under-line digitsin a like predicament,converting the presumptives into/in the other.c into t in the one instance and12. With so many causes of uncertainty, inherent and Consequentexternal, it is not surprising that scholars fifty years ago looked or f theon Oghamic investigation as an unpromising employment. SirJames Ware and Mr. As tie had made public the fact that suchan alphabet existed, and that Irish manuscripts of respectableantiquity professed to give examples of several varieties of it,and to furnish the keys. Lhuyd, the father of Cam bro- Britisharchaeology, had seen the Ogham-inscribed stone of Bruscoson the strand of Trabcg Creek, near Dingle Harbour, in Kerry.

10 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSPetrie.O'Donovan.The MinisterSchool ofOgham students.Windele.Petrie had made known the general appearance of such amonument by his drawing of the Ogham-inscribed pillar-stoneat St. Manchan's, in the same neighbourhood ;but he did notat that time regard such an inscription as true alphabeticwriting, and attempted no transliteration of the digits he haddrawn. Excellent and conscientious draftsman though he was,he had indeed mis-copied not less than five out of the twentyfourletter-equivalents made up of seventy-eight digits of whichthe legend consists ; and, had he essayed the transliteration,would have elicited little that could be called articulate andnothing intelligible. His doubts were shared by O'Donovan,whose scepticism was the more weighty because, of all our Irishscholars, he was best acquainted with what bardic writers hadsaid in their frequent allusions to Ogham as a known systemof alphabetic writing, and with the numerous keys and paradigmswhich the mediaeval grammarians professed to give of it.But at this time O'Donovan had not had the experience whichshortly after befell him, when, in his enquiry after material forthe then projected Ordnance Survey Memoir of Ireland, hefound himself under the Ogham-inscribed roofing-stones of theCave of Dunloe, and had to acknowledge that he stood in thepresence of a long past age speaking to us by intelligible, articulatesigns. Petrie, too, before his death, would no doubthave wished that passage of his essay expunged, in which hechallenged the Munster Antiquaries to show that the inscriptionin this character preserved in the Cathedral at Ardmore, andwhich they thought Druidical, was " literary writing of anykind." These Munster Antiquaries were men of moderatescholastic acquirements, but sincere and very ardent explorersof the antiquities of their country. The leading spirit amongstthem was the late Mr. John Windele, of the City of Cork, aman of great natural ability,and of that contagious geniuswhich attracts, and propagates itself in the minds of others.They had alreadynumber of Ogham-inscribedascertained the existence of a considerablemonuments in the counties ofCork, Waterf ord, and Kerry. Mr. Windele himself had visitedHis transcriptsand copied most of the legends, among the rest that at Ballyquin,which he made Catabar moco festiqonga.of the numerous other texts from time to time copied by him

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 11are less inaccurate than probably most other draftsmen at thatperiod of the inquiry could have produced, but are, in everycase which I have seen, more or less imperfect ; and, as ifconscious of this defect, although well acquainted with the Key knownkey, ho never himself professed to have read or even trans- Pi'ularl y-literated any of them.of the old13. The key was indeed known to manyIrish-speaking people of the country. It had been transmittedin many treatises. Of these the principal is that containedin the Book of Ballymote, a late fourteenth-century Key in Bookcompilation. Besides the regular Ogham alphabet, it pro- of Ballymotefesses to give about fifty derivative variations, but these are,in great part, illusory, the differences consisting only in theletter-names, or in the use of particular objects instead of theregular digits.The remainder are produced by duplications,transpositions, and inversions some sufficiently transparentand even puerile, others more difficult: as, for example,Ogham comesgda, the confused or drunken Ogham, where the with variations,second letter of one aicme is used for the first letter of another ;and Ogham rinn fri derca, where the aicmes are not onlyinverted, but interchanged. Three only of these curiousexercises of ingenuity appear to be relevant to the presentinquiry. In one, the Run Ogham na Fian, the digits of what, Examples,at first sight, appear distinct over- and under-line groups notexceeding three in number, are discontinuously apposited soas to overlap, and, by combination, to serve the purpose ofthe normal five digits, and, where vowels are indicated, asthey generally are in what I shall call Scholastic Ogham, bystem-crossing digits, the same artifice appears applicable.In another, the Nathair im ceann, or " head-coiled snake," aninverted name is written before the same name writtendirect, and the legend reads outward from the centre toeither end, yielding the same name (here Cellac) both ways ;&HII .. liil 1111 .... IlllI! II II IIand in the other, the ">?Gleselga, the chase-feat, the first halfof one name is written before the first half of another ;thenthe second halves in like order, as

12 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSFeth : :Seg nat : nat.Fethnat, Segnat.As succeeding scribes got farther from original examples,their inventions became more idle and conceited, comprisingNaomh Ogham, where the letters have the names of saints, asBrendan, Laisren, Fintan, &c. ;Dan Ogham, where they arecalled after branches of knowledge, as if we, in English,should say for B, Biology, for L, Logics, and so on ;BiadOgham, after articles of diet, as Bacon, Lamb, Fowl, &c., andother such ineptitudes for which the later Irish penmen hada singularly childish partiality. All these variations, however,are grounded on the original Ogham alphabet, of which thetradition of the country never lost sight. Although they tookno notice or care of the monuments, the old people preservedthe key to the cypher, and had it committed to Englishcountry verse long before the days of Lhuyd and Astle.For B one stroke at your right hand,And L doth always two demand.For F draw three ;for S make four ;When you want N, you add one more,and so on through the alphabet in ill-rhymed but intelligiblelines. Mr. Windele relates an instance of its use in our owntimes which is worth preserving:" The oddest use I have seen made of this letter was by a mannamed Collins, living at Duneen, near the old Head of Kinsale. This manhad a favourite walking-stick of goodly size, which he coloured black, andon it painted with a white oil-colour a long Irish poem on the Zodiac inthe Ogham character. This stick is now in my possession, and is a verystriking instance of a patient labour of love. The same person put hisname in similar characters on his cart, [and was summoned] before theMagistrates at Petty Sessions. On the evidence, however, of the Rev. Dan.O'Sullivan, now P.P. of limiskeen, a most competent witness on all subjectsCollins was discharged, but recommended bypertaining to such literature,the magistrates to append on his cart shaft a translation." (WindeleMSS., K.I.A., iii., 148b.)windeie's 14. Yet such was Windele's love of the subject, as much Imonument.imagine for its mystery as for its significance, that, although apious and orthodox member of the Roman Catholic Church, he

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 13chose for the headstone of his own grave afine Ogham-inscribedmonolith bearing at top a deeply-incised Maltese cross, whichdoubtless he believed had been superadded by a Christianhand to some Pagan memento of religion or philosophy conveyedby the Ogham. Amongst his younger associates wasthe late Mr. Richard Rolt Brash, of the City of Cork, architect, Brash,a man of excellent powers of observation combined with anacute judgment and warm enthusiasm, who, after Windele'sdeath, continued to prosecute the Oghamic inquiry with equalindustry, but with greatly enlarged resources in material as wellas in scholastic aids, and who, addressing himself to a verymuch wider circle, has made a name which will long survive inconnection with this kind of learning. Another of Windele'sassociates was the late Rev. Mathew Horgan, Parish Priest of Horgan.Blarney, who, there seems no doubt, recognised the oftenrecurringgroup/. iim .as the equivalent of Maqi, 4 son of,' at an early period intheirresearches. A characteristic etching of this genial ecclesiasticamong the Windele papers now at the Royal Irish Academyalso one of Maclise.is, I believe, from the pen of the painter Maclise,the circle drawn together by the winning force of Windele'scharacter.15. It is impossible not to extend a large amount of sympathyto these eager South Irish antiquaries. Fully persuaded of the CharacteristicsPagan origin of the Round oftheir8cU o1 -Towers, and of an age of literaryculture before the introduction of Christianity, they regardedtheir Oghamic discoveries as so many Orphic fragments fromwhich primaeval learning would, sooner or later, in somemeasure, be reconstructed and; contested, with an ardour fartoo hot, every opinion which did not tend to advance theirviews and aspirations. This heat belonged to their period andlocal tone of society ; and, if it must now be allowed to have beenunsuitable for the search after historical truth, we may alsomake some allowance for the excesses of an ardour which hadnothing dishonest or uncandid in it. But there is no pursuit inwhich more room should exist for distrust of one's own obser-

14 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSGravesvation or gentleness in dissenting from the observations ofothers, than this research in a field where so many accidentsof light arid position conduce to varieties of impression ondifferent eyes, and to conflicts of statement among eye-witnesses." Tis green, 'tis green, sir, I assure you.""Green ?" cries the other in a fury;" Why, sir, d'ye think I've lost my eyes ? "The Southern school had, indeed, no toleration for anyone whowould not see with their eyes both sensibly and in the wayof ratiocination ;and much of the efficiency which, in such apursuit, flows from co-operation and mutual encouragement, hasbeen lost to Oghamic research in Ireland in consequence.16. While the Southern antiquaries were adding to thenumber of their discoveries, but not advancing in the use ofaccurate transcripts or reliable inductions, the Rev. Dr. CharlesGraves (afterwards President of the Royal Irish Academy, nowBishop of Limerick) subjected the Ogham texts, so far as hecould be assured of them, to the process which may be termedthe cypher-test, assuming them to be written in the Irish of ouroldest manuscripts. The proportionate percentage of eachletter in the known text identifies the corresponding letter intests the key. the cypher. On this principle itappeared that the traditionalkey was in substantial accordance with the theoretic values ofthe letters so deduced, and Dr. Graves entered on furtherOghamic inquiry with the assurance that he proceeded on firmground. Shortly afterwards he was rewarded by the discoveryof the biliteral monument at St. Dogmael's, in Wales, wherethe Sagramni filiCunotami of the Latin is echoed by theOghamic Sagrani Magi Cunatami, putting the equivalence ofMaqi to * son of out of the way of doubt or question. Speedilyother discoveries followed. It was ascertained that the ScottishNewton Stone, besides itsseemingly Romanesque epigraph,bore a long Ogham legend, and that other Ogham inscriptionsexisted both in Wales and Scotland. One from Bressay,in the mainland of Shetland, was submitted to Dr. Graves,who found that the language was Norse, and that it seemedto commemorate a daughter and grandson of a known Scandinavianpersonage of the ninth century.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 1517. Considerable collections of Ogham transcripts had nowMr. Richard Hitch- Hitchcock,accumulated at the Royal Irish Academy.cock had sent up numerous copies, distinguished by care andsubstantial accuracy. He observed that upwards of thirty suchmonuments in Kerry and West Cork were marked with the signof the cross. The Munster antiquaries, however, maintained thatthese crosses formed no part of the original design, but werethe additions of Christian zealots who took this method ofsanctifying Pagan remains ; and, as often as cross-signed monu- Cross-signedments bearing Ogham legends have since been discovered, have ^nts1 *adhered with the utmost tenacity to this opinion, for whichneither evidence nor the least presumption of probability exists.Mr. George Du Noyer also presented the Academy with several Du Noyer.volumes of admirably-executed drawings of various objects ofantiquity throughout the country, including many transcriptsof Ogham legends. Although a very accomplished draftsman,his texts are not to be relied on. He has a fine drawing of theBallyquin monolith, but makes itslegendCatabar mocofestiquar.18. Frequent communications now began to be made to theRoyal Irish Academy,in some of which Bishop Graves contri- Graves'sbuted valuable results of his views on particular legends and essay8

16 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSAtkinson.Brash's conclusionsnotaccepted.RhysLectures.Investigationstill tentative.English literature, which he had enriched from Norse andAnglo-Saxon sources, and possibly, if he had lived, would havefurther illustrated from our little-used Irish material.20. Brash, also, I grieve to say, is no longer with us. Onhis death, it appeared that he had devoted the later years of hislife to the compilation of a considerable work on the generalsubject of Ogham inscriptions. His papers were put into thehands of Mr. G. M. Atkinson, of the Department of Scienceand Art, and, under his editorship, in 1879, appeared in a handsomeand indeed a highly-interesting quarto volume, entitled" The Ogham-inscribed Monuments of the Gaedil in the BritishIslands."21. Mr. Brash was a good draftsman, and his copious illustrationshave been supplemented by Mr. Atkinson in severalfacsimiles and drawings, most of which are of remarkablefidelity.The work is written in accordance with the views ofthe Munster school. I am obliged to withhold my assent frommany of the readings, and, I may say, from almost all the conclusions.It contains, however, much curious matter on collateralsubjects, and in the further course of these investigationsI shall thankfully make use of information drawn from it.22. Another impulse to the inquiry has been given by thefoundation, at Oxford, of a Professorship of Celtic. ProfessorRhys, who fills that chair, besides being a scientific and generalphilologist, takes a particular interest in the old language andlapidary writing both of Wales and Ireland, and has travelledthrough both countries in search especially of Ogham inscriptions,on which he has already given us much valuable informationand many helps to study in his published Lectures.23. It would be premature, and, indeed, arrogant topretend that any definite analysis of Ogham texts can bemade in the present state of our knowledge. The only wayin which the subject can be presentedis as inviting to inductionrather than as expounding inductive results. The wholeof the material, so far as it can be authentically procured,must first be passed in review ; and, from what has been seenof the extraordinary liability of these texts to errors of transcription,it is obvious that some kind of automatic reproductionof the objects themselves ought to be before us, if we

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 17would be assured that our labour shall not be lost in thepursuit of phantoms, where the mistake of a digit or a notchmay have altered the whole basis of our reasoning, and turnedwhat ought to be fruitful investigation into mere illusion andreverie.24. Such reproductions can be attained without the labourof transporting heavy masses of plaster of Paris, by means ofPaper casts. This kind of cast has the advantage that it can Paper casts.be conveniently held in the hand and presented to the lightin varying degrees of incidence an important means ofgetting at the traces of worn inscriptions of all kinds. ThePaper cast has the further advantage of pliability, so that aninscription extending to two surfaces which could not be seenon one plane reflected from a solid model, can easily beexposed on the flat to the photographer's lens. I have,therefore, from time to time procured Paper casts of most ofthe Oghams I shall refer to.25. True texts being secured, the next requisite towardsgetting at the meaning is a right transliteration. There Transliterationbeing no word-divisions, save in a few exceptional cases, theverbatim, if I may so say, depends in a large degree on theknowledge and sagacity of the reader. I can here no longerspeak with the same confidence. In what I shall proposein the way of reducing transliterations to words, and ingiving to these words their English equivalents, I by nomeans claim for myself the same degree of certainty as in liable to errors,the assignment of the continuous values. If, hereafter, laws,grammatical or constructional, should appear to be legitimatelydeduced and the probability of a large addition tothe present material gives reasonable hope that such lawsmav yet be established, a tone of authority may becomejustifiable but at; present the study is exploratory ratherthan demonstrative ;and he who speaks with most modestyis the more likely to obtain an intelligent hearing from menof judgment.26. The main questions agitated are : Whether the Ogham Questionsis of Pagan or Christian origin ; Whether, if of Pagan origin, anyof the monuments are Christian ;Whether the Welsh impartedit to the Irish, or vice versa ; and, Whether its forms belongcdettlt Wllil -

18 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONS.Conclusionsto a vernacular or to an artificialised and technical language.Minor questions relate to the meaning of particular phrases orformulas which, from the frequency of their occurrence, seemto be removed from the category of proper names. I shallnot be able definitively to clear up the meaning either ofMaqimucoi or of Maqi decedda; and I shall have to leave thequestion of Irish or British, as well as of Pagan or Christianorigin, dependent on the question of language, which I do notprofess to solve. I shall often have to say " perhaps," andoften present alternative conclusions. These my readers willhave to judge of for themselves not that I shall withhold;the expression of any opinion I may think myself capable offorming but because my judgment in such cases will be of;little more weight than that of any intelligent bystander. Ishall be able, however, 1 think, to show reasonable groundsfor believing that the bulk, if not all, of our Ogham monumentsare Christian ;that some of them represent, perhaps,as old a Christianity as has ever been claimed for the Churchin either island ;and that the " Scoti in Christo credentes" towhom Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine in the fifth century,were, especially in the south of Ireland, a more numerousand better organised community than has generally beensupposed. I shall, I think, bring Irish Pagan and BritishChristian monumental usage into actual contact in Wales ;and contribute something towards the further elucidation, asChristian monuments, of the Sculptured Stones of Scotland.The bulk of the material, however, lying here, it isproposedto proceed, first, with a survey of the Ogham-inscribed monumentsof Ireland.

CHAPTER II.Ogham-inscribed Monuments of Ireland in the County of Kerry, Barony of CorkaguinyRuth-cave, Rathmalode Colonel Lane Fox's description of Rath-cave ofRoovesuiore Lougher Lintel Stone Stone Cross, Ballynahunt Ogham undergroundLeabhar-na-h-Uidhre : identification of the burial place of Eochaid:Argthec Inscriptions at Ballynahunt Ballinvoher Brackloon BallintannonGortnegullanagh Lugnagappul Aglish Aghacarrible Cave materialsbrought from cemeteries called Killeens used; only for the burials of unbaptisedchildren and suicides Inscriptions at Kinard Trabeg Ballintaggart Bally -nesteenig Emlagh West Burnham House Kilfountaiu MaumanorighCahir-na- gat Temple Manahan Tyvoria Dunmore, or Clogher Head.27. A SURVEY of the Ogham-inscribed monuments of Ireland KEBUYmay be conveniently commenced in the district where they ( Corkft o r 'y)'first attracted learned attention, that the is, Barony of Corkaguiny,in the County of Kerry. It is conterminous with the Peninsula oflong peninsula which, reaching out more than thirty miles Cwestward into the Atlantic, separates the Bay of Tralee on thenorth from the Bay of Dingle on the south. At the pointwhere it juts from the mainland rises the lofty mountain groupof Slieve Mish, overlooking the town of Tralee to the north.A prolongation of the Slieve Mish group, lower, but morevaried in outline, runs along the medial line of the peninsulathrough about two-thirds of its length, and there, turningnorthward, unites itself with the outlying mass of MountBrandon, which rises over the sea at the northern side. Dingle,situated on a creek on the southern side of the peninsula, in themore open country lying westward of these mountains, wasformerly approached from Tralee by a highroad crossing theridge which connects Brandon with the mountain chain firstmentioned. The Tralee road now avoids this difficult pass bvbeing carried obliquely through a depression in the medialmountain chain debouching at Annascaul on the southern lineof coast road which leads to Dingle from Castlemaine andKillarney. Entering the district by this avenue, as from

20 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKERRY Castlemaine, Oghamic sites and monuments may be observed(Cor agumy). numerous on either hand as we proceed westwards.28. After passing the ravine which separates Slieve Mishwith its ruined barbaric fortress of Cahir Conree on itswestern extremity, from the lower eminences, we enter theparish of Ballinvoher, a rough, lonely country, but aboundingtowards the sea in remains of circular huts and otherdry stone constructions, indicating a former ill-civilized butnumerous population. Here, some distance up the mountainEathmalode. acclivity to the right, in the townland of Rathmalode, there1 * 1*'Kerry formerly existed a Rath or earthen fort, and in it a cave,45 the lintel over the entrance to which, having on it a crossand an Ogham inscription, was transferred to the adjoiningtownland of Lougher, where it served the same purpose overthe door of a farmer's dwelling until removed to the RoyalIrish Academy, in Dublin, where it now is. We shall haveRath cave. occasion to notice many Rath-caves hereafter, and Imay atonce cite the compendious and interesting account of theseconstructions given by Colonel Lane Fox in his description ofthe Ogham-inscribed monuments found in the Rath-cave ofRoovesmore, in the County of Cork :" They (theforts or Raths) vary from 30 to 100 and 200 feet indiameter. The largest I know of in the south of Ireland, called Lisna-raha,has a diameter of 280 feet, with a ditch 12 feet deep, and 30in width at the outside The interior space of the rath isalmost invariably undermined by a set of chambers, theentrance to which is usually by an opening so small as barely to admitthe body of a man creeping on the belly. These chambers vary insize, but average 9 feet in length by 3 to 4 in height, and thesame inwidth. Similar narrow openings communicate onwards to the otherchambers ;and sometimes these underground galleries diverge into twoor more strings of chambers, occupying the whole interior space withinthe circuit of the intrenchments. The main entrance is frequently inthe ditch of the rath, and is not unusually the smallest. When thenature of the ground admits it, they are often excavated in the naturalearth, and domed over without any artificial support ; but others are* Each sheet of the Ordnance Map of Ireland contains six square feet. To lighten the labour ofsearching so large a surface, the references are reduced to areas of a toot each ;asu. I,upper left. u. c. upper central. u. r. upptr right.1. I. lower left. I. c. lower central. I. r. lower right.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 21lined in the inside with undressed and uncemented stones, the sides KERRYconverging 'towards the top, which is usually flagged over with large (Corkagumy).and heavy slabs of stone, serving to roof the chamber, and, at the sametime, by their weight, to prevent the sides from falling in ; at othertimes, though rarely, they are formed by upright jambs of unhewn stonelike the crypt at Roovesmore."29. The inscription on the Lougher lintel is imperfect, butenough remains to introduce us to one notable phrase in Ogham u% c>sepulchral legends.It readsand may obviously be dividedCURCIMAQIMUCOIF * *curci maqi mucoi f # #that is, according to our present lights, (the stone) of Cure sonof Mucoi F * * . The meaning of Mucoi is still subject ofspeculation. Haigh has taken it to mean * daughter/ and wouldsay that in this case before us * Cure ' should be regarded as'son of the daughter of F * *,' according to the alleged Pictishsystem of tracing descent throughthe mother. Brash hasthought it a noun descriptive of the calling of the persondesignated, as swine-herd. The late learned and ingenious Mr.Herbert, if he had been aware that a word suggestive of porcinemeaning occurs in so old an inscriptional monument, wouldhave recognised traces of that Early British Church organizationin which, he thought, one of the grades was porous Christi.Others have taken mucoi to mean " pure," " holy," *' virgin."30. Westward of Lougher, higher upin the recesses of themountain, we come to a monument marked " Stone Cross " on Ballynahuntthe Ordnance Map, at a farmstead in the townland of Ballynahunt.It stands attached to the gable of one of the farmubuildings,whither, I understand, it had been brought from a holy wellhigher up the mountain to the east. The cross which gives itits name on the map is of considerable size, of the Latin form,incised on the broader end of the stone. An Ogham inscriptionhas occupied both arrises and the top of the narrower end.Were the stone set up, so as to exhibit the cross, the Oghamwould be concealed in the earth. This, however, is what we Ogham undermight be led to expectif we looked to our oldest writtenground-

2 2 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKKBBT evidences for information regarding the form of sucli monu-(Corkagmny). nientgj an(j t j iearrangement of Ogham legends on them.There exists a remarkable romance and a romance incidentallyreferring to such a matter is as good evidence as atreatise touching this subject, in our oldest Irish secularmanuscript, the Leabhar-na-h-Uidhre, compiled in the eleventhstory of century. The story turns on the identification of the burialplaceof Eochaid Argthec, a personage of third-century date.In evidence of his having been buried at a particular place, one**of the actors in the pieceis introduced as saying, Take up thestone that stands there. It bears his name. And the Oghamthat is written on the end of the stone that is in the earth isthis: Eocliaid Argthec innso, Eochaid Argthec here." It maybe that the Ballyriahunt inscription exemplifies this supposedpractice of hiding the sepulchral epigraph under ground ; butsuch is not found to have been the general practice. Otherexamples, however, are not wanting of Ogham-inscribed flagstoneslaid flat on the surface, and thismay very probably havebeen one of that class. Whatever its age, the BallynahuntMonument stone, I make no doubt, is a Christian monument, not onlyevidently by its cross for I put aside the idea of Christiancrosses having been superadded to Pagan sepulchral monumentsas resting on no evidence or reasonable presumption,but not improbably by the terms of the inscription itself.The reading appears to bewhich I would divideDUGENNGGELMAQiReDDoS.UDugennggel maqi reddos.itionOne digit only of what I suppose to be I remains at the top ;and, unless the character be /, the explanation of this strangesequence of syllables which presented itself tomy mind at thetime when I first examined the monument, must be discarded,of I thought, then, the name might possibly be Dugreddos dividedNames.^ ^ inter jec ted words Ennggd magi, *' apostle of the son,"and not Dugenngge or " Dugennggub, son of Reddos," as it hasby others been taken to be. Several examples of this kind ofword-intercalation, on the possibility of which 1 have here

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 23speculated, are found in early Irish ;as the verses improvised KERBTby Columbkille on the death of Longarad of Killgarad (Fel. ( Corka o'uiny).u^Eng., cxlii.)Is marb Iondo chill garad,mor in donDead is Lon (of Gill) garad great the evil !where " do cill " is interposed between the constituent parts ofLongarad's name and in the names of Cuchulain and;Ferdiad,Cu dan comainm Culand ;andIndar limsa Fer dil diadin the Tain poemsin the Book of Leinster. If other monumentsshall appear to suggest something of the same kind ofdispartition of proper names, it will be well to bear the Ballynahuntlegend in our recollection.31. Near Annascaul, in the townland of Rathduff, lies theBallinvoher parish graveyard. A standing stone here bears the Ballinvoherremains of Ogham characters now reported to be illegible. It^also bears a triple cross, incised. There seem to be no traces ofa church.32. To the left of the highway, some distance from Annascaul,within the bounds of the parish of Ballinacourty, thedoor lintel of a, farmer's dwelling on the townland of Brackloon, Brackhonif my memory serves me, bears another inscription, which Mr.7 '\Brash (239) readsErcaficca maqi c. * *The remainder is lost or possibly hidden in the masonry of thewall. Not possessing a cast, and having mislaid my drawing,it is with some misgiving I state my impression that the terminationof the principal name It i&jiccas. appears to be one ofa numerous class ending in fee, fie, and peculiar to the Countiesof Cork and Kerry.33. At Ballintarmon, another townland in the same parish,is an Ogham-inscribed pillar,an account of which has beenpublished in Vallaucey's " Collectanea," vol. vi., p. 224. A copyof the text by Mr. Windele is published in Mr. Brash's work,p. 200; but appears illegible.It bears a cross. I have notseen it.

24 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKERRY(Corkagumy).Gortnegulla-44I.e.Liignaqappul54U. C.34. Entering on the parish of Minard, the general characterof the country remains the same a strip of two or three milesbreadth between the mountains and the sea, rough, picturesque,and along the coast full of rude stone remains of old inhabitation.To the left of the highroadlies the townland of Gortnegullanagh,from which one of the inscribed Ogham monumentsnow in the Academy's collection was removed manyyears ago. It formed a lintel over the doorway of one of therude stone cloghans referred to. The stone isengraved on twoangles, a boldly-cut cross bstween. One side readsBIAQQIDECKDDA.Maqqi Decedda.The other, imperfect at the endMAQQICATTUFic.Maqqi Cattu fie.I do not find any other characters. Reading these as " the sonof Decedd " on one side, and " the son of Catufic" on the other,the question naturally presents itself, How comes it that thepersons intended to be commemorated are not themselvesnamed, but only their fathers ? If there be no other answerthan that such was a common style of epitaph in Oghamic times,as we shall see it was by frequent examples,it must be owned thatour first entrance into the inquiry supplies us with a kind ofsepulchral formula not easy to reconcile with the object ofpreserving individuals in monumental memory. We have noexample of anything so vague in sepulchral tituli elsewhere, andmay note the anomaly, especially in regard to the maqqi decedda,for future reference.35. A highway to the coast, strikingoff from the main roadat Gortnegullanagh, conducts to the adjoiningtownland ofLugnagappul. Here, on the left hand of the road, at a placecalled Parknafulla, or the Field of Blood, is a low cairn oncesurrounded with standing stones, four of which remain, twobeing inscribed. I shall borrow Mr. Brash's description of theplace and reading of the inscriptions, which I have not myselfseen :"I found a low cairn 30 ft.by 20 ft., of an irregularrectangular shape, composed of earth and stones, and from 2 ft. to 3 ft.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 25above the general level of the field. The two inscribed stones are on KERRYthe eastern side of the cairn. No. 1 is a beautifully-formed pillar, oval ( Corka g in y)-in section and perfectly smooth, with a rounded top perfectly conical. Rounded pillar..... It is in length 4 ft. 2 in., its diameter being 1 ft. 5 in. and 1ft. 2 in. The inscription runs lengthwise on the centre of the stone,without any stem line ; nevertheless, from the regularity and distinctnessof the characters, it is quite easy to recognise their values. Itcommences at 1 ft. 9 in. from the bottom, and runs round the headGossucttias.No 2 stands on the same side of the cairn : it is aflatter and more irregularly-shaped pillar than No. 1, being 4 ft. inlength, 1 ft. 3 in. in breadth, and 9 in. in thickness. The inscriptionis on the rounded face near the centre running lengthwise upwards, andoccupying 1 ft. 10 in. in length, as follows(Og. Mon., 197-8.)Sticunas"36. A sketch of Mr. Windele in his MS. which he entitles"lar Mumhain" (Lib. R.I.A.) resolves the st into gam, makinggamicunaS)apparently a more likely-looking combination.37. The rounded pillar here described belongs to a type ofwhich we shall presently have many examples. Whether theseare artificially-shaped blocks or great rolled sea pebbles, Icannot say. I do not know of their existence anywhere elsethan in this immediate district, save in one instance where afragment of an inscribed pillar of the same kind was found onthe seacoast of Wexford, near Hook Point. The absence of astem-line iscompensated by greater care in preserving the Line of consymmetryof the spacing, the vowels being shown by short vexit y fordigits rather than notches, and the over-line and under-linegroups placed well apart from the middle convexity.38. Proceeding from Lugnagappul towards the west, wereach the townland and ruined church of Aglish, the cemeteryof which has furnished to the Lapidary Museum of the RoyalIrish Academy its much-canvassed Apilogdo inscription. Christiantimes are emphatically written on this stone by a Maltesecross in a circle supported on a stem, at either side of whichmay be discovered a filfot, a form of cross in Pagan as well as

26 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKERRYChristian use, but here made collateral and ancillary to the all-(Corkagmny). reconcjlin g emblem. The Ogham characters at one side,may take them as complete, readMAQIMAQ.4Maqi Maq,where we may again ask, What son? and who isMaqa,if weif thatbe the ending of this part of the legend ? At the other side,reading in like manner downward, we haveGDAPILOGGOSTwhere great embarrassment arises from the presence of aninjured group of four stem-crossing digits, capable of manytransliterations. I at one time entertained the idea that, likethe duplicate Cellach of the cypher, which reads both waysoutward from a common centre, so, possibly, this legend isintended to be read both ways inward from the ends to the xmaking Apostoli ; but this solution is far from satisfactory. Mr.Brash made, I think, a better guess in suggesting Abilogus,a well-known name both in Irish and Welsh annals. But theBishop of Limerick has, perhaps, set us both right in seeking tobe theidentify the name as Aedloga, conceiving that it mayrecord of Aedloga, son of Maeltuile, a petty king of the neighbouringterritory, whose date would be sixth or seventhcentury. In making out ths equivalence of these names, theBishop treats the X character as having a third power, onthe ground ofjo, v, and dh, passing into one another in numerousexamples ;and I am far from saying that he has not made apersuasive argument. In the same churchyard of Aglishstillstands another Ogham-inscribed pillar. It does not appear toAgliacarrible54be now legible.39. From Aglish, in Minard, we cross the hill westward intothe parish of Kinard, and reach the townland of Aghacarrible.This, in the other provinces of Ireland, would be called Aghacarbleor Aghacarvil. The introduced vowel before b or infollowing r is still noticeable throughout Minister, and mustbe respected in such words as storm, form, farm, if we wouldnot dislocate the prosody of the provincial poets. Even as lateas the reign of Elizabeth, Carbcry is speltin official documents

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 27Corribrie. Aghacarrible is regarded as a rath, rather than a KEBRYkilleen or burial-place, and it has a cave, similar to those (C rka &um ṿ )-described by Col. Lane Fox. What raises a doubt of itscharacter as a rath is that just outside its circular ditch lies agreat flagstone, apparently cast down from an erect position,covered with ring and cup decoration, arguing a monumentalnow Cave,character. Taking it, however, as a rath, its cave mayclaim our attention. It is but a few feet below the surface,about 5 ft. wide and 4 ft.high.It consists of an outer and aninner chamber, walled at the sides with standing stones, andcovered above with others laid across. Two of these wall Ayhacai-nbie.stones bear Ogham legends one, which I did not examine, issaid to readMaqi Bacos ;the other reads,LADDIGNIMAQQIMUCCOIAN^. * *Laddigni maqqi muccoi ana. * *where the remainder of the legend probably continues downthe back arris, now inaccessible in the recesses of the wall. Itis palpable that many of the supporting stones of such caveshave been already inscribed with theirOgham legends beforebeing built into their places ; indeed in some of them the concealedcharacters can be felt with the hand. To read theselegends fully, the roofing stones should be removed and the supportingwall stones exposed all round but as; yet, save at Dunloe,none have been more than very partially uncovered, and theirlegends remain in most cases to a great extent inaccessible.The patronymic name in this epigraph of Laddignus orLaddiynos appears to begin with Ana, which, if so, would correspondwith other seemingly classical names we shall meetwith having the same prefix.The inference which commends Cave materialsitself most to the mind in contemplating such an interior is,that the materials already inscribed with their monumental epigraphshave been brought from some neighbouring cemetery ;and this gives rise to a consideration of no little interest andcuriosity. The cemeteries which are found adjoining suchcaves, and from which the materials of the caves have presumablybeen brought, are generally of that class of burial-places

28 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKERRY called killeens or ceallnragJis.These are very numerous in theKmeenr iny) ' soutl1 anc* west of Ireland .They are not used for the inter-Not now used ment of Christian adults. In most of them the burials are1 *con finedoTchrta'tfonto. unbaptised infants. Mr. Brash has given a highlyadults. curious and valuable account of them in his posthumousvolume :" These cemeteries are to be distinguished from the ordinary burialgroundsof the country at present in use, and which are invariablyconnected with ancient churches or remains of a known Christiancharacter. The keel is unconnected with Christian churches or associationsof any kind, and, where still made use of, it is solelyfor theinterment of unbaptized children and suicides They areusually circular areas of varying diameter,distinguished fromthe rath by having but one rampart without any ditch the entrance is:a cut through the fence In some instances the keel is enclosedby a circle of upright stonesIn some examples theyare low circular or oval cairns, without any fence In manycases the mound and fence have been entirely erased, butthesite has been left to nature ; and, while the field around it has beena hundred times broken up and cultivated, nothing will induce thepeasant to push a spade in or drive a plough through the keel. Insome instances, in valuable land, the keel has been, from time to time,encroached on ;the cupidity of the farmer, getting the better of hissuperstitious fears, leads him to push his tillage, yard by yard, on theoutward rim of the weird circle. The operation is quite evident atKilcolaght in Kerry, and Kilgrovane in Waterford ;both bare circular,unenclosed and untilled spots in rich fields the ;Ogham-inscribed stonesbeing huddled together in the centres." (Og. Mon., 88.)They are extraordinarily numerous in the Counties ofWaterford, Cork, and Kerry. In the latter county, Mr. Brashenumerates under the denominations of Kill, Kyle, Killeen,Cealuragh, and Children's Burial-grounds, one hundred andthirteen examples, besides one hundred and four old burialgroundsnot now connected with any church. They are alsonumerous in the County of Antrim, in one parish of which,Culfeightrim," Dr. Reeves has identified nine of those keels, independent of thegraveyards still in use." (Ib., 89.)Mr. Brash concludes his very interesting notice of those

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 29cemeteries, which he regards as wholly Pagan, by the state- KEURYmeat" In conversing with the peasantry of the south and west of Ireland,I have never yet heard them use the word kil to designate a church :the word Teampuilis that invariably used by them, while the word keelis always applied to the burial-grounds." (76., 92.)How shall we account for the semi-sacred yet not quite holycharacter of these cemeteries ? The writers who assert aPagan origin for Ogham writing regard them as the buryingplacesof the old Pagan population, and on this ground accountfor the want of reverence for their gravestones shown bythose who plundered so many of them to obtain materialsfor the construction of their rath-caves. In support of thisview it is alleged that the Ogham inscriptions found in rathcavesnever bear the Christian emblem. And this is generallytrue. We have seen, however, that the cross on the Gortnegullanaghstone did not protect it from being used as a lintelover the doorway of the cloghan there; and, in fact, in thiscave of Aghacarrible one of the wall stones, although not AghacarribieOgham-inscribed, bears two incised crosses, and has presumably,as well as the others, been brought from some killeen or disusedcemetery in the neighbourhood. The theory assumes a totaldisuse of the Pagan cemeteries by the early Christians, savefor the interment of the unbaptised, which is not consistentwith the course of the social transition from Gentilism to theFaith elsewhere.Pagans and Christians repose in the adjoiningloculi of the Catacombs. The repugnance indicated may havesprung from another source, to which a wider survey of theevidence may lead us further on.40. Leaving Aghacarrible with its many hints to reflection,we proceed to the townland of Kinard East, with its ruined Kinardchurch and regular cemetery, containing two5Ogham-inscribed ^monuments. One bears the nameMARIANI,with what appears an Oghamic alphabetic diagram annexed,and an incised cross. The other lies, as it seems designed tohave lain, on the surface of the ground. It is inscribed alono-

30 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKERRY the whole of one arris, over the head and down part of the(Corkuguiny).K'mard'"ACURCiTiFiNDDIiORaSD CAcura'ti Fmddilorasd cwliich might be read findlloras or, allowing for the transpositionsometimes attending on the change from one arris tothe other, findidorac. The name Curcitt will be sufficientlyfamiliar to our eyes presently to induce the inquiry, What canbe signified by the initial a? A sign of contraction (~~~)appears incised over it, and gives to this inscription the mostmodern aspect of any yet noticed. It possibly stands for aninitial formula anm, of which we shall have many examples.So little did I regard it as part of the inscription when atKinard in the commencement of these studies, that it has notbeen included inmy cast, and its relevancy has only sincebecome apparent to me. Note also the form of the inscription,importing that it is the memorial not of Curcitt son of Findilorasor dorac, but in the possessive, of Curcitt's Findilora, orwhatever the second name may be.4^ At Kinard we overlook the creek of Trabeg lying to thewest, and, if it be low water, may see the lac Sheeoaun na geela,",;{as the Trabeg Ogham stone is popularly called, on the oppositeL beach. The Bruscos stone is a handsome pillarwhich formerlystood erect on the Gar finny or Dingle side of 'Trabeg, but nowlies on the strand, where it is washed over at high water. Thecharacters adjusted to one arris of the stone are easily legible,save towards the end of the inscription, where the carver hashad to crowd his work somewhat to keep it from overrunninghis space. Notwithstanding, some of the notches of his final groupreach partly over the head of the stone. I made a careful castof the whole in 1$70, the photograph from which is preserved;but the light needed to bring the characters along the side intorelief falling directly on the top, gives no shadow there, and,the cast having been lost or mislaid, I can only vouch my ownrecollection for the existence of the terminal i of the legend.Jt readsBHUSCOSMAQICAL7VICI&c.Bruscos Maqi CahVeci,

IX IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 31or Caluoci, according as the notches following the I are regarded KERRYas six or five in number. If five, the apparenthiatus in the ( Corktt S ulli y>groupdivides it into u and o. But the seeming hiatus to myeye betrays the remains of an abraded sixth notch, and thereading results, as in Divitiacus, Caliaci, which seems mostprobably a statelier presentation of the ordinary name Cellach.42. This creek of isTrabeg the first indentation in thelong coast-line from Slieve Mish. It is followed by the landlockedsheet of Dingle harbour, two miles west ;and thisagain, at a less interval, by the equally capacious and shelteredharbour of Ventry. About the centre of the peninsula, betweenTrabeg and the harbour of Dingle, on a byroad to the left,stands the Killeen of Ballintaggartor Priesttown. The church BalUntnand regular cemetery are at a little distance. It is a rough u ccircle about 60 ft. in diameter, surrounded by a ditched fence.The access isby a gap on the north. On entering, one perceivesno fewer than eight of those rounded pebble-like blocks of whichsome account has been given at Lugnagappul, laid on the surfaceround the margin of the enclosure. They do not appear everto have stood upright, but the tops and bottoms, alike roundedand still in some degree polished, are distinguishable by thedirection of their legends, which occupy the sides and topsonly. These oblate flattened stone spheroids are most difficultto cast in paper. The mould must be made in several parts;otherwise it will not come off without tearing, and the juncturesof these pieces where the loss or duplication of a digit maywork transformations so extensive, is a business of excessivenicety.Add to this the incidents of windy or rainy weatherand the awkwardness of inexperienced hands, and it will not bematter of surprise that the casts of these pulvinarian copestones,taken by myself and the late Mr. Burchett, exhibit manyimperfections.The sharpness of the casts, indeed, has inmany cases been blurred by the necessity of carrying them in awet state to where they could be dried at a fire. Were thework to do again,I would advise the employment of plaster ofParis, from which paper casts might be taken at leisure undercover ;for the plaster cast cannot be turned to the light orexamined with at all as profitable a scrutiny as the light andeasily-handled piece of papier maclic. Still, with their help, I

32 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKERRY(Corkaguiny).Ballintaggart(A)think I can answer for the transliteration of these eightlegends.43. Beginning with the first stone to the left, one is struckwith the peculiartridental form of the ends of the arms andstem of the cross, incised on its smooth upper convexity. Thedigits of the accompanying inscription are broad and symmetrical.On the north or right side, beginning from below, is thesame name lately noticed at Kinard,CURCITTI.On the opposite side, beginning alsothe top, the legend readsfrom below and roundingTRIAMAQAMAILAGNITria Maqa Mailagni.BaUintaggart(B)Here we have an example of Maqa uncomplicated by any doubtas to the finalityof the a.Nothing is disputed save whetherMailagni should not be read MeolagnL The undivided sixnotches might be read either way, or they might be read uu, oruoa, or in various other combinations if the form of the nameso required. But the question for more serious considerationis whether the maqa here is a feminine, in agreement withTHa, and the same with the seeming Maqa of the Aglish stone?Then, Tn'a, is it a personal name or a numeral, a singular or aplural?i wish I could answer, or even hold out the hope thatmaterials for an answer may be expected in our further courseof investigation. But, copious as the general material is, it, asyet, supplies no further example of similar endings in a, andI abstain from conjecture.44. The second of this strange group of monuments supplies,if not a new word, a new phonetic element in nomenclature,which will often recur. The legend, beginning at the bottomlefthand side of the stone, runs continuously over the top anddown the other side, having a plain cross on the space between.Its reading is complicated by the presence of the X character,to which, so far, we have seen, two values are generallyallowed to be assignable the diphthong in e, as ea, eo, &c.,and jo.It is plain, from the concurrence of vowels flankingthe X, that it cannot be the diphthong here; and, by giving to

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 33it itsp value, this is the transliteration which appearsresultNETTALMINACCAPUIMAQQiMuCOIDOrosKA&c.to KEKBYNettal minaccapui maqqi mucoi Do(ros).We easily segregate the now familiar maqqi mucoi but the;nettaor nettal and the pui are new. Whether the netta is to be takenas parcel of a proper name, or as an independent vocable, or tobe read as ettal preceded possibly by the article an, are questionsas hard to solve as any we are likely to encounter. I hadfirst no doubt that it formed part of a proper name, Nettalami,but the cast refuses to admit an a after the Z, and compels us toread ettal minacca, which certainly callsup the idea of Italianmonachism. The poi or pui stands independently in the place "p""where we might expect the copula in the sentence, and presentsthe welcome feature of something predicative. It is, in fact,the verb substantive in the past tense. We shall often meet itin the form poi, corresponding to the Irish boi, that is fuit," was " or " who was." I make no doubt that the Bishop ofLimerick isquite well grounded in this discovery, and thatwhether it be an Italian religious who is here commemoratedor some one called Netlam (Nitida Manus), the legend assertshe or she "was" Maqqi Mucoi Do(ros}, whatever that maymean.45. The third of the group, givingitsp force to the second Baiiintaggartcharacter, readsAPEFRITTI,which seems to designate a son of Efritt. Efritt, Efratt,is a nameknown in Patrician documents. The ap therefore may be anearly form of the Welsh map, the equivalent of the Irish maqi.But the question presents itself, Whence came the employmentof p, a letter not in the original Ogham alphabet, hereas well as on the preceding and on the Aglish monument? Therewere two lines of British connection with Minister one beforethe introduction of Patrician Christianity ;the other, throughthe Welsh ecclesiastics who came in some Patrick's train. Thefirst connection rests on both British and Irish authority dating use of thefrom the time of Nennius; the second appears by a curious letter P-D

34 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKERRY passage in the Glossary of Cormac, to the effect that the Welsh-(Coikagumy). men w^Q came W jj.j1 Patrick could not pronounce the Irishword Cruimthir (corrupted from Presbyter,a Priest), but calledBaUiniaggartshall beit Premier. According as the ps of these inscriptionsreferred to the one or the other of these origins will be thelength of the retrospect which materials of the kind now beforeus may justify us in taking.46. The fourth member of the group offers the first example,so far. of vowels being indicated throughout the greater partof the text by stem-crossing digits equally long as those employedfor consonants. This adds materially to the risk oferror in transliteration ; but, the legend being confined tovowels and underline consonants, the difficultyis less felt.INISSIMONAS.If the name be Ssimon, we might recognise, in the initial ini, areflection of the imo of Eochaid.Ballintaggart 47. This is one of the most clearly inscribed and easilytransliterated of the group. It readsMAQQIIARIPOIMAQQIMUCCOiDoFFJNIASEA&c.^Maqqi lari poi maqqi muccoi Doffinias.The name lar, father of the father of four virgins, stated to bevenerated ** at Cell Ingen larain and in Corkaguiny," occurs inthe Felire of JEngus (Fel. JEng., 26 Oct., Trans. R.I.A. Ir. Ser.,vol.i., clix.)lar's father is named and described in the inscription;but neither in it nor in the Felire isany further designationgiven to lar's son. Maqi lari may therefore be supposedto have been a person of sufficient distinction to have beenremembered as son perhaps only son of his father. Or itmay be that such formulas were in use when the son was calledafter the father, or by a diminution of the father's name, as in" Cell Ingen larain."Ballintaggart 48. Offers nothing questionable. It is the simple recordDOFETIMAQQICATTINIDofeti maqqi Cattini.which doubtless preserves the name of Dofet, son of Cattin.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 3549. The same formula ispreservedgroup.in the seventh of the KERRY(Corkaguiny).SUFALLOSMAQQIDUCOFAROSSufallos maqqi Ducofaros. 1G )The Greekish aspect which struck us in other names againappears in Ducofaros. There is reason for thinking theseos terminations indeclinable. They are found to be so in theGreek proper names adopted into Eastern liturgies. BothEgyptians and Greeks are known to have resorted to Irelandin early monastic times, and it may well be, as the Bishop ofLimerick has supposed, that these os loan-terminations are tracesof their presence, and are no more declinable here than intheBallintaggartCoptic.50. We have now made the round of the Killeen, and havereached the stone which lay at the right-hand on entering.On one side it repeats the maqqi decedda of Gortnegullanagh in Ballintaggartthe form(H)MAQIDECCEDAMaqi Decceda.The word Decced is not anywhere found in the nominative inthese monuments, which may excite some doubt whether it isa proper name. The inscription on the opposite side, beginningfrom below and rounding over the head of the stone, presentswhat seems to be a pair of names conceived in the possessiveformula A's B, as on Curcitt's stone at Kinard. The traces onthe top of the stone are extremely faint, but along the side arestrongly cut and almost all certainOLUSSESICONAS,or, if taken in the reverse sequence,CAQOSICECCUDO(ros ?)Caqosi ceccudo(ros),and must be regarded as preserving names very singular intheirapparent meanings.51. A ninth Ogham-inscribed monument lies outside theKilleen to the south. It is of the arrised class, very rugged,and in some places hard to transliterate, but appears to readCOLUMMAQQlFIC(ias)BColum maqqi Fie(ww).

36 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSHere, unless we suppose the m to play a double part, the(Corkaguiiiy).ing WQuld be Columbaqqific (&c.), but the upperread-half of the 6digit may well be supposed to have been lost.52. Returning to the main road which conducts from LispoleBridge at the head of the Creek of Trabeg to the town ofDingle, about two miles out of the town, close to the highroadon the left, in the townland of Ballynesteenig, is seen another,and the last, as it is also the largest, of the lenticular class ofmonument which we have still to notice. It remains nearly inthe same place where it lay when seen by Mr. Pelham earlyin this century. It was then whole, a rounded pillar-likeblock with semi-spheroidal ends of about 7^ ft. in length. Ithas since been broken in two by kindling a fire against it, butthe fracture has not injured the inscription, which is boldlyincised along the medial convexityMOINENAMAQIOLACONMoinena maqi olacon.It was early pointed out by the Bishop of Limerick thatMoinena is a well-known name borne by several ecclesiastics,and Olacon, the genitive of Olchu, an equally well-knownproper name. He went further, and showed that an Olchu wasgrandfather of St. Brendan, and that a Moinena who died in theyear 571, was the bishop attached to St. Brendan's monasteryat Clonfert. That he should have been interred in Brendan'sancestral district seems not improbable, and certainly no onecan reasonably, in presence of such facts,question the appropriatenessof the cross which accompanies the inscription.West 53. Just on the outskirts of Dingle a laneway to the leftleads through the townland of Emlagh West, where stands thefragment of a pillar bearing the legendTALAGNIMAQ cTalagni maq(i).Talagni, like the Laddigni of Aghacarrible and Mailagni ofBallintaggart, seems to be the genitive of a proper name. Weshall findmany examples of similar forms. They appear toimply Oghamic nominatives in os. It seems agreed on that therepresentatives of those in agni at the present day would beforms in dn, such as Tallan, Bonan, &c.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 3754. The country around Dingle offers a marked contrast to KERRYthe rugged tract through which it has been approached. Across ^ (residence of Lordthe lake-like harbour is seen the loftyhas assembled here a col- BnmhamVentry at Burnham. Lord V entrylection of Ogham-inscribed monuments, which I purpose todescribe in connection with their places of origin ; proceedingat once to the rich Oghamic tract which lies to the north andwest.55. Two miles north-west from Dingle on the Kilrnalkedarroad, to the left, is the Killeen and ruined church of Kilfountain,with its monumental pillar.Mr. Brash states thatwhat remains of the church is in dry-stone masonry. Thereare many Fintans, generally spelled Fionntain in the IrishCalendars ;but the name as it appears on this monument inRoman characters is Finten. It is inscribed under a characteristicCeltic cross, accompanied by singular and not inelegantornamentation ;and there are, adjoining it, along the arris ofthe stone, three Ogham characters, INS, wanting only o, whichmay have been there to make the inso we have been in searchof. It is one of the rare instances in which a Killeen is foundin connection with existing ruins of a church, and with anevidently Christian monument erected in it. Being Christianand presumably consecrated, why, it may be asked, is thecemetery now regarded as unfit for adult Christian burial ?and why and when did it come to be so regarded ? Whetherany answer can be given to these questions must depend on afuller survey of the remaining evidences; but enough has beenseen already to give these Killeens a wider interest than theymay at first have appeared to possess.56. From Kilfountain, a by-road leading westward conductsto the townland of Maumanorigh, where will be found another ^children's burial-place, and in it the foundations of a ruinedchurch and a stone monument bearing an Ogham legend of amore complex, and, so far, a novel character. That it is aChristian monument is attested by two Maltese crosses, one ofthem supported on a stem, as on the Aglish example. Theinscription is carried round the face of the stone, which is aboulder apparently in situ, on an artificially cut stem-line, and

38 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKEBRY at first sight appears to present the following singular succes-(Corkaguiny). sion of sy nables_AN M COLOLOMBNALILTE RLanm Cololomb nalilter.Maumanoriyh The introductory anm occurs on so many other examplesthat it is easily separable from what seems the principalname beginning with col. I at one time thought the anm andDull Laitime.col were to be read both ways, outward from c, as in the puzzlecypherof cellach, yielding the name Colman, to which Iwas encouraged by the fact of the adjoining townland, whichmight have included Maumanorigh as a sub-denomination,being called Kilcolman, and of there being no church orburial ground there and; taking the name to be Colman, thereseemed good reason for recognising in the terminal groups,slightly altered, the word " ailitir, pilgrim." I had, however,to abandon this ancillary use of anm, on finding that combinationof letters to be, as it is, a common formula prefixed tomany other Ogham inscriptions, and the great difficultyof theintermediate cololol still remained. A closer scrutiny, however,of the text seemed to restore Colman in another form; forwhat at first sight seemed the terminal I before nalilter, havingpart of its first digit above the stem, might resolve itself intomb, making Cololomb, and the interjected syllable ol only remainedto be dealt with. In this stage of the investigation myfriend, Dr. Whitley Stokes, threw upon it the light which is onlyto be had from very rare learning and research in manuscriptoriginals.He found in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin(H 2, 15), in the handwriting of Dudley MacFirbis, a tract calledDuil Laithne, containing a class of words fabricated by a processcalled formolad, from ordinary Irish words, either by insertingcertain meaningless syllables, or by substituting certain lettersfor others. The inserted syllables, of which the Duil Laithneaffords examples, are osc, anc, inc, unc, nro, ucull, ros, es or 05,air, aur, ur, and oil, as " collumac, power," formed on the Irishcumac ; colluicen, " kitchen," formed on the Irish cuicenn ; justas here, by the same process, the sculp tor of the MaumanorighOgham appears to have engraved Cololomb for the IrishColomb. The I in the nalilter I would suppose to be a super-

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 39fetation of the same kind, and conclude that " Columb the KEUHYpilgrim " is the person in whose epitaph these pains have been ( Corku sum y)'taken to disguise his name and manifest his Christianlabours. We will not be surprised, after this, to learn thatthe Uraicapt, or what is called the Primer of the Bards,enumerates no fewer than eight bearla or forms of speech, oneof which, the bearla tobaid, seems to be formed by additionsof some and droppings of other letters.All this sounds veryfanciful and unlikely to have existed in practice among apeople having the ordinary occasions for the use of languagq.But in an isolated community with various castes and ordersof society such a thing may be conceived of; and we maynot altogether discredit the story of King Conor MacNessa,who, having heard his judges debate a question in languageunintelligible to him and the bystanders, enacted that in theadministration of justice for the future the language usedshould be the vernacular of the day.57. Columb appears to have been a favourite name amongthe religious of Corkaguiny. Petrie has given a drawing of thpstone of another Columb not far from Maumanorigh, in hisessay. I cite it here for the sake of itsmonogram of Maria^which it exhibits in conjunction with what seems to be thealmost obliterated name of Colum, son of Mai in,Romancharacters.58. Two miles distant, to the north-west, near the Dunurlin Croad, in the townland of Ballywiheen, we come on42a way-side.pile of stones called Cahir-na-gat or Cats7 Castle, surmountedby a pillar found in an adjoining Killeen. Its legendis almostunique in its completeness and the certainty of all its digitsTOGITTACCMAQISAGARETTOSTogittacc maqi Sagarettos.If maqi be a genitive, as we have hitherto accepted it, thenit cannot be in agreement with the nominative Togittacc, andthe reading must be Togittaccus Sacerdos Filii, a highlyChristian and doctrinal meaning, quite in accordance withwhat has been seen respecting the names in os alreadyobserved on. But ifany doubt whether maqi be not necessarilygenitive have arisen, this, for its solution, will await

(JO.KERRY(Corkaguiny).40 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSour arrival at the next monument but two remaining betweenTemple Mana- 59. At a short distance, north, in the same townland arehan42the Cealluragh, cell, and monumental pillar of TempleI. c. Manahan. This also is a children's burial-place, and it containsone of those dry-stone cells or oratories with which Petrie hasmade us familiar in his essay on Irish ecclesiastical architecture.A rude causeway leads to the door of this little structure. Tothe right of the causeway stands Saint Manchan's pillar, inscribedwith two crosses and itsOgham legend. A fracture atthe top has carried away some digits and notches, but you willreadily supply the remainder of the lost formula. Whatremains readsQENELOCIMAQIMAQIAINIAMUCOITQeneloci maqi maqi ainia mucoi.,Tyvoria4j jWhat may have followed Mucoi must remain unknown, but itlooks as if it were the end of the legend. If this be Manchan'sepitaph, he is presented to us by his secular name, which mightbe surmised to have been Cennloc, Cennlogha, or somethingsimilar. He is made son of the son of Ainia, a name not knownto me elsewhere. The crosses may sufficiently testifyto hishaving been a Christian. Why, then, the question will recur,should his cemetery now, like his neighbour Fintan's, be disparagedby the faithful and reserved for the unbaptised?The intermediate monument referred to stands nearthe high road at Tyvoria, in the townland of Teeravona.It does not bear an Ogham inscription of the ordinary kind ;but is noticed on account of itsmonogram corresponding tothat on the Colomb stone, accompanied with a device somewhatresembling the one at Kinard, and probably an Oghamicbiliteral echo of Maria.ciogher Head 61. At Tyvoria we are near the sea-shore, and, taking theor Dunmorecoag^ rOad southward, reach Dunmore Head. On the ridge/. /. of the promontory, in a conspicuous position over the Atlantic,stands a pillar-stone bearing the Ogham legend, on one arrisQEECMAQIERCIASEre maqi Ercias.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 41and on the other, after intermediate characters not now KERRYlegible, the name, already noticed elsewhere,DOFINIAS.AUp almost to this point we have regarded maqi as aThe suffixed i has been considered inflectional andgenitive.equivalent to the infixed i of maic, the more modern genitiveof mac. Here it appears indisputably to be in agreement "with the nominative JErc, and excites renewed doubts as tothese Oghamic forms being governed by ordinary grammaticallaws. The ias genitive for nouns ending in c and n is againexemplified in this inscription, which, rugged and weatherwornas it is, must be considered one of the most valuablefor philological use, or warning, as the case may be,noticed.hitherto(Corkagniay),

CHAPTER III.Ogham inscriptions at Ballyneanig, Ballinrannig, Burnham The church, and Oghaminscribedtombstone at Kilmalkedar Dry -stone church at Gallerus Kills andKilleens sepulchral Leges Barbarorum Ogham-inscribed stone on BrandonMountain, and at Clonsharagh, Martramane, Camp Slieve Mish, with its fort ofCahir-Couree Story of Blanaid Dividing line between the Oghamic and uon-Oghamic districts of Ireland coincident with the limits of the Patrician mission-Oghams of Kerry, Limerick, and Clare Knockfierna inscription Ogham onCallan Mountain Memorial pillar nt Knockastoolery Monuments at ClonmacnoisRath Croghan ; its associations with Queen Maeve Oghams at Brestagh,Topped, Castlederg, Aghascribba Monument on Knock Many, or Hill of Bani ;supposed sepulchre of Queen Bani, wife of Teuthal Techtmar, whose death andburial on Knock Many is recorded in the Annals under the year A.D. 111.KK.RBY.JBallyncanig.16562. TURNING back from Dunmore Head, and proceedingin the direction of Smerwick Bay and the heights of Brandon,we pass the lands of Ballyneanig, which have supplied one ofthe Ogham examples at the Academy. It is imperfect, but, Ithink, accepting in part Mr. Brash's correction of a formerbe renderedreading of my own, mayLUGIQRITTIMA(QI).Qritti.Lucrit would not strike the eye as an abnormal form of anIrish name ;and itmay be, here, it is presented in state-dress.63. We are here in sight of the harbour of Smerwick lyingbetween us and the acclivities of Mount Brandon. Its shoresare barren and solitary.A broad sandy beach curves roundits inland margin. On a low promontory about the middleBallinrannig of this beach, in the townland of Ballinrannig, formerly stoodseven Ogham-inscribed monumental pillars. Whether the sitewas a cealluragh or a cemetery attached to a church cannotnow be determined, the blowing sands have so overspreadit. Mr. Wiridele visited the place in 1838, and made a highlycharacteristic sketch of it as it then appeared. Of the sevenpillars, one only remains in situ, now prostrate and concealed

OGHAM INSCRIPTIONS. 43in the sand. I have not seen it.Transcripts byvarious KERKY.hands make itandCunas maqqi Corli maqqiCona maqqi Corbbi maqqiI adduce it here partly on account of the name Cunas or Cona,which may find an echo further on, but chiefly as introductoryto a peculiar class of proper names, of which we shallhave frequent examples. Having regard to these, I wouldobserve that Corb appears more likely to be an Ogham propername than Corl, as having a meaning " bad," " wicked," theof which will now receive some illustration. Therelevancypillar which, in 1838, occupied the summit of the knoll, isnow, I believe, at Burnham, having been removed from Lough, Bumkamnear Ballintaggart, where I saw it in 1870. It bears,distinctly cut, the nameBROINIUNAS,Broiniunas,where the as genitive instead of the ias of other examples mayinvite the attention of the grammarian. JBroinion, as a propername, seems to import, like Corb, personal depreciation. Weare here, I think, on the track of an explanation of otherapparently humiliatory designations, the singularity of whichmade us pause for a moment over one of the Ballintaggartgroup. One of the most curious contributions to inscriptionalcriticism of our day is a paper by M. Edmond Le Blant in theRevue Archceologique (N.S.x. 5), entitled " Sur quelques nomsin which he treatsbizarres adoptes par les premiers Chretiens,"of certain names of self-depreciation and reproach assumedby Christian devotees from the fourth to the eighth century.others he enumeratesAmongstContumeliosusInjuriosusImportunusMalusExitiosusCalunmiosusInsapientiaFoedulusMaliciosusMolestaPecusFimusStercusStercorius

44 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKERRY. Hence itmay appear that the Irish lexicographer MacCurtin,when he wrote the following paragraph of his treatise onOghamic writing annexed to his Dictionary, was not altogetherwithout foundation for his statement, however puerilein the way he puts it, that matters to the disparagement ofBurnhamthe deceased were often contained in their Ogham epitaphs." It was penal," he " says, for any but those that were swornAntiquaries to study or read the same. For in these charactersthose sworn Antiquaries wrote all the evil actions and othervicious practices of their monarchs and other great personages,both male and female, that itmight not be known to any butthemselves, being sworn Antiquaries, as aforesaid." Hence,also, a probable cause may be surmised for the frequentobliteration of parts of Ogham legends, leaving the Maqisand Mucois untouched.64. Three other of the original pillars are also at Burnham.On one of those I thought I traced the remains of the. nameGillamurra or Gillamurras in continuation of Maqi Tenacon the opposite angleMAQQITENACGiLLAMURRas.The Christian form of Gillamurras excited much controversy.It still seems to me the likeliest reconstruction of the text,which notably illustrates what has already been said of theinherent ambiguities of this kind of writing for it; dependsaltogether on whether the second digit of what otherwisewould be an i of five notches has not extended on both sidesof the arris, turningt into amu. The digit in question isshorter than that which, taken as m, helped us over the puzzleof Colomb at Maumanorigh ;and both are under the usualthe arris.length of that letter, although distinctly crossingBurnham 65. Another follows the example of the Gortnegullanagh() example, giving apparently only the patronymicsMAQQICUNITTI.MAQQI QITTI.The third is imperfect at foot, but preserves the form^RAFICASMAQIMUCOI.(g)raficas maqi mucoi,

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 45where we see again the genitive in as instead of iasexamples, and mayence.of other KERRY.note the terminal mucoi for future 'refer- gen. in asmucoi terminal66. Of the Chute Hall group I cannot speak from personalknowledge. I have seen several readings of one made bygentlemen of skill and experience, but greatly discrepant, anddo not reproduceit. Of the other, all the copies I have seenagreeCcicamini maqqi caltini.Cucuimne is the name of an Irish person recorded in the LiberHymnorum, and, if I might be so bold, I would submit thatCicamin gives a more probable foundation for the name ofthe Broch, Dun-Clicamin, than the local circumstance whichhas been suggested to account for it.67. Leaving the cairn of Cill- Vickallane, or " the Graveyardof the Sons," as this solitary spot is still called, amidits waste of sand and water, we may now direct our stepsto Kilmalkedar, from the road to which place we began solong a divergence when turning westward at Kilfountain.Here we find a comparatively large Christian church of thatHiberno-Romanesque style which Petrie has endeavouredto show was earlier developed in Irish than in Britishexamples. Surrounding it is a regular church cemeterycrowded with the gravestones of perhaps thirty generations,under no popular interdict, and where the unbaptised andsuicide would not be admitted. Among the other standingstonesmarking the graves of the Faithful, is one pillar Oghaminscribed,and which, when I first examined it, appeared toconfirm my impression of the tenor of the Ballinahunt legend.It seemed to read " angel " before the principal name, but tooobscurely to justify me in a published transliteration. Onthe cast it is seen that an and what may be two rris or awidely-spaced g,with room for a considerable number ofabraded vowel points, precede the letter I in the introductorypart of the legend. This may be the frequent initial formulaanm followed by Mael or Maoil inbiric, with an interjected XX. I haveafter Maoil ;or it may be " angeil " followed byto thank Mr. Brash, for suggesting the former reading, whichnow seems to me the preferable one. But what shall we

46 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKERRY. make of the X ? In none of the values hitherto given it,will it fall in with the context, and must, I imagine, beregarded as a non-vocable symbol thrown in out of asuperfluous piety among the constituents of the name, as onNorse bracteates and Anglo-Saxon coins of the later middleages. The whole legend, then, would now appear to run,including what may be considered doubtful in bracketsEight arrisLeftANM G Ma^LiNBiRic.MACIBROCANiaS.Aiimmaoilinbirpc] maci brocani[as].GaikrmuLThe Brocani or Brocanias, as I think it was engraved,might be expected in the form Brocagni, and possibly we havehere a transition from an older to a more modern inflexionalform, a conjecture countenanced by the substitution of c for qin maci.68. Before leaving this Kilmalkedar district we may observethe remarkable cell or primitive dry-stone church at Gallerus.It is a small edifice with sloping sides rounding into a Gothicarched roof surmounted by a crest or barge-course ofmasonry and; exactly corresponds in outline with one of theRoman miniature cellae preserved at Nancy, which I am aboutto refer to. We must have been struck with the fact that,save at Kilmalkedar and Kinard, all the cemeteries, Mils,killeens, and cealluraghs so far noticed are either without anytrace of churches or, in exceptional cases, as at Kilfountainand St. Manchan's, are associated with edifices little removedfrom the rude cloghans of the country. In regard tothese churchless burying places, it might be thought thatwooden churches may have stood in or near them formerly,and may have been consumed by Time. But this isan exceptionally stone building district. From Ventry westthe seacoast is covered with the drystone ruins of what iscalled " the city of Fahan," and the whole tract thence to Kilmalkedaris full of stone monuments. The existence, however,of cemeteries without churches need excite no surprise.If these were, as seems most probable, Pagan places of burialwould be no ground for expecting annexedoriginally, therebuildings of either wood or of stone. What is surprising in

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 47connection with them is how they came to be called kill and KERRY.killeen, equivalent to "church," and "little church," or "chapel."In the Irish of the middle ages the kill of topography is cell, theequivalent of I do not at all sayderived from the Latincella. Cella is primarily a cellar or place of deposit ;in itssecondary sense the cell or shrine of a temple, the separatedwelling of a monk, &c. It is not used in the meaning of a Kill andsepulchre in any literary record, so far as I know, but in earlyChristian symbolic sculpture it is so represented. Lazarus inthe catacombs and on the sarcophagi always issues from theportico of a little cell or temple-like structure, sometimesridge-roofed, sometime domed like a Byzantine basilica.What indicates the connection this seems to have with the killsand killeens of Corcaguiny comes not inappropriately from theLeges Barbarorum. In the Salique Law of Graves " Ifanyone throw down or plunder the porticulus set up over a"dead " person ; If anyone shall pillage the house made in the"form of a basilica over a dead " person ; If anyone burn abasilica over a dead person," let him pay a fine of so much.Down to later than mediaeval times the representative ofthese Frankish porticuli and basilicain Provence were calledchapels, and appear to have been of wood. In Pagan timesthey had been of stone. There is an assemblage of suchobjects in stone in the Burgundian Museum at Nancy. Theyare miniature ^Edicula of 2 or 3 ft. in height, bearing Romaninscriptions with D. M. prefixed, and exhibit all the characteristicforms of the stone cells and .early stone churches, as wellas of the sepulchral stone vaults, of these southern andwestern Irish places of burial. The name of the cell-likestructure over the sepulchre passing to the burial-place,might account for these Irish kills having been so called,although without associated churches. There is someauthority for the suggestion. Feretrum, a bier, in the Originesof Isidore, is " the place to which the dead are borne," andit is not improbable that the Irish " feart? in its sense of a" grave," may be of the same origin. I read some curiouslycorroborative matter in Colonel Forbes Leslie's " AncientRaces of Scotland." He points out that several stone circlesand remains of burying places, apart from any place of

.48 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSworship, continue to be known by the names " church,"" Kirk" " in kirk," and " chapel " and I; may add that the MacMahonScotlandburial vault, at Inm'skeen, in Monaghan, bears an inscriptionpurporting that " this chapel " was erected by, &c. We mayconsequently conclude that we have up to the present beenmainly among the traces of a Christian church, which, asregards places of worship, was churchless, or, at least tosome extent, a church of catacomb organisation. It is nowtime to resume the survey which next leads eastward overBrandon mountain.69. On the western shoulder of Mount Brandon, which risesMount Brandon2*precipitously from the sea, there is a comparatively level plateauof the cliff and theforming a terrace between the vergecentral summit of the mountain further south. Here in thetownland of Arraglen, at a height of upwards of 2,000 ft.,stands the " cruimthir " pillar. Excepting the foundation ofa modern signal tower, there is no trace of habitation withinmiles, save the ruined hermitage of St. Brendan, 1,000 ft.higher on the ridge behind. Two crosses, one on the front,the other, a Maltese cross in a circle, on the back of the pillar,sufficiently attest its Christian character. Up the seawardarris of the western front runs an Ogham legend, about which,save its last latter, there is no difference of judgment.QRIMITIRROS,whether the last letter be s or n is doubtful. If w, it will read,in continuation, as part of the proper name Ronan MaqComogann on the arris opposite. If s, which I cannot helptaking it to be, the legend would runcertainly not so satisfactory asQRIMITIRROS AN MAQ COMOGANN,Haigh's reading, which yieldsthe name Ronan as that of the crumthir.70. Proceeding along the seaward face of the mountain, we35 reach a stream on its eastern declivity, crossed by Tier Bridge,and descending towards the coast village of Cloghane, in theClonsharaghtownland of Clonsharagh, come on three great gallauns orstanding stones. They stand in line, and measure 7 ft., 10 ft.,and 12 ft. above ground respectively. Their aspect is certainlynot such as our present information would lead us to expect

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 49in Christian monuments. A fourth, now prostrate, has KERRY.formerly stood to the left. The rude, massive character ofthe stones, and the sternness and solitude of the situation, makea profound impression on the mind. Ogham digits exist onthe side and top arris of the great block in the centre of thestanding group. They are scattered, and not legible ;but ifChristianity be plainly written in Ogham on the Arraglenpillar, the same certainly cannot be said of this OghammarkedGallaun of Clonsharagh.71. We now leave Brandon mountain, which at this sidepresents a vast grassy concavity, surmounted by a wall ofrock under Brendan's hermitage, and proceed eastwardto Castlegregory, in Killaney parish. Here, in the townlandof Martramane, built into the chimney-breast of a farmer's Martramanecottage, formerly existed an inscribed 3stone, said to have beenMbrought from one of the Magheree Islands in the offing,nowin the collection of the Royal Irish Academy. Its legend,imperfect at the end, will recall the Qeniloci of St. Manchan's.QENILOCGNIMAQIDQenilocgni maqi d72. There remains but one other Ogham inscription, so faras my knowledge goes, in Corkaguiny. We reach it aboutfive miles further eastward, in the townland of Camp, near Campwhere the Castlegregory road is met by the line from Anas- ^ ncaul. We are here again under the western declivity ofSlieve Mish. If we ascended the valley, which at thisside skirts the foot of the mountain, we would find theruined barbaric fortress of Cahir Conree at the summit. Thismeans the fort of Curoi (making conree in the genitive) sonof Dari, a name famous in Irish romance, the contemporaryand rival of Cuchullin, by whom he was slain in his mountainstronghold, through the treachery of the faithless Blanaid.She milked the fatal white cows with the red ears, whichCuchullin and Conall Carnach had plundered from EochyEachbeol, King of Scotland, into the stream running downhither, which was the signal for the attack. Here, to theeast of the Anascaul-road, on the surface of the ground,isseen a great flattish block, like the covering stone of acromlech round which the soil had accumulated. It bears a

50 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKERRY. cross and an inscription in Roman characters, as well as anOgham legend on the edge remote from the road. Read fromleft to right in the usual manner, it yields the transliterationSOQUQCEAFFMONISOQURI,and remained unexplained until the present Bishop ofLimerick (then Rev. Dr. Charles Graves) perceived that thecharacters are inverted, and that the reading really isor, it may be,Conuneatt maqi Conuri,Conun eattmaqi Conuri.The cross and the Roman letters forbid our thinking of theson of Dari, but it is difficult to dissociate the name from thatof Curoi, Conuri, in the very locality which his exploits andbetrayal have made so famous. The accompanying inscription,in Roman mixed minuscules, seems to spell Fecununi.There is a vertical dash over what has been taken for thec, which may affect the reading. One cannot help suspectingthat it is a tinverted, and that the readingisFeet Cununi."the tomb of Cumin," recallingthe conuneatt of the mainlegend.73. We have thus travelled through a country more thicklyenriched with Ogham remains than any other district of equalextent elsewhere; and perhapsitmay be a relief to looknorthward and eastward as far as the eye can reach from thesummit of Slieve Mish, and learn that throughoutall NorthKerry, Limerick, Tipperary, and even beyond the visiblehorizon in Queen's County, King's County, Longford, Leitrim,and Westmeath, no Ogham legend is known to exist nor has;any been heard of, save, by doubtful report, near Tarbert, inNorth Kerry, and at Rathkeale and Knockfierna, in Limerick,respectively. If, indeed, we looked down in the oppositedirection on the plain of Magonihy, the old Moy O'Conqin,the site of Ptolemy's Concani, extending southward fromSlieve Mish to the Reeks, we should contemplate a field ofabundant material for such matter as has occupied us up tothe present. To this field we shall return in completing the

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 51circuit of the island which is now before us, and which will KERRY,be made " desiul " with the left hand to the sea. And here,in the northern boundary of the Oghamic district of Corkaguiny,it will not be out of place to observe that we are onthe dividing line between those parts of Ireland which SaintPatrick is recorded to have visited, and the regions lyingsouth of the Galtee and Knockmeldown mountains fromhence to the confluence of the Suir and Barrow, into whichno apostle of the Patrician name appears, at any time, tohave penetrated.74. I have referred to an inscribed stone near Tarbert, inNorth Kerry. From Mr. Windele's drawing of it I wouldsuppose it to be one of the Ogham monuments now in theLane Fox collection in London. It is imperfect, but seems toyield the nameBABROCI.Babroci.75. Of the example from near Rathkeale, in Limerick, I LIMERICK.have no trace ;but a drawing by Mr. Windele of the Knockfiernaexample has been preserved by Mr. Brash (Og. Mon.,293), and is here copied from his workd qma maqi bogagafecc.The maqi determines the course of reading, and the bogagaffeccfollowing however uncouth-lookingwill be found to haveits substantial counterpart in other legends better authenticated,to be hereafter noticed.76. In North Limerick, at Adare, the Earl of Dunravenhas assembled a collection of Ogham monuments at AdareManor, the description of which ought properly to be inconnection with their places of origin. One, drawn by Mr.Du Noyer (Lib. R.I.A.), reads, up one side, round the head,and down the opposite side, without change of position,Corbagni maqi bifiti.Another will be found under Gortmacaree, further on.77. Northward of the Shannon, in Clare, we hear of CLARE.only one Oghamic inscription, but this is a monument inmany ways worthy of note. The south-west of Clare, andup the wide alluvial valley of the Fergus as far as the

52 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSCLARE.^Scholasticcounty town, Ennis, is a well-tilled country. Between Ennisand the sea the character of the scene changes, and nearMiltown Malbay becomes rough and mountainous. SlieveCallan, the highest eminence in this tract, though not a loftymountain, is a conspicuous feature from great distances allround. The leading road from Ennis westward traverses itat nearly its greatest height, having the summit and a littlemountain tarn on the right hand. On one slope of the ridge,rising from the lake, stands a fine cromlech ;on the oppositeslope, further from the road on the peaty, heathy surface,lies the much-discussed Mount Callan inscription. It isl ra flagstone of about 9 ft.by 2J ft., fractured at one end,and bearing an Ogham legend which at once strikes the eyeas belonging to a school of inscriptional work different fromanything we have so far observed, and strongly recalling thestyle and appearance of what may be called the Scholasticgam.^ Oghams of the books. Examples of these are found in manuscriptsranging from the ninth to the seventeenth century.Their characteristics are, a pen-drawn stem line, and verticalstem-crossing vowels as distinguished from oblique stemcrossingconsonants. They are generally trivial notes oraphorisms designed, one would say, for the purpose of showingoff the scribe's accomplishment. Thus in a MS. of the Annals ofInnisf alien, in the Bodleian Library, we readNemun (for nemo) sine numo honoratur nullus amatur.None without money honored ; yea, and noneLoved, but has got some money of his own.And in a British Museum MS. of the Brehon LawsBeithmaidne mar each ais a lochtSo tisfomcosaib ba hi an comairchi.As other ages ours :you, people, goUnder my feet have law's :protection so.But the series of characters, however long, is still, like all theWords dividedlegends we have yet noticed, without any...kind of wordinCallan indivision.Here on the Callan Monument not only are thescriptiou and . .vowels stem- words divided by points over and under an incised stem-line,crossing. an(j ajj |ne voweis formed by stem-crossing digits, but the

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 53whole legendis set in an incised frame or cartouche, giving CLARE.at first sight to those acquainted only with ordinary Oghaman unexampled and questionable aspect. But Irish antiquaries,familiar with the word-separations of Scottish Oghamlegends, no longer look on these points with suspicion and the;surmises of fraud and forgery which at one time discreditedthis monument may now be regarded as altogether displaced.What chiefly excited the disposition to question its genuinenesswas an ambitious attempt of an Irish scholar patronisedby General Vallancey, Theophilus O'Flanagan, to translateit in fourfold sequence, so as to produce, in modern Irish, asense appropriate to sepulchral commemoration whether readfrom left to right or vice versa, or from one side of the stemlineor the other. Besides, he made it the epitaph of ConanMaoil, the contemporary of Finn Mac Coole, although, indeed,he did not find the name Conan there, but only Collas or Conas,which he took as Conaf ;and in his fourfold exposition, had notonly to supplement some digits and retrench others, but wasobliged, after his first excursus from left to right, to altogetherdisregard the limitations of the word-divisions, refusing asthey did to fall in with his new syllabic necessities so that;when it was suggested that he himself had forged the inscriptionto play on the credulity of his patron, men's common senseat once perceived the incongruity of a forger devising a fabricatedtext which would not lend itself to the exigencies of hisintended elucidation. But in truth no one can look on thefaint, weather-worn digits, hardly distinguishable from thewrinkled surface on which they have been picked out, withouta strong persuasion that the inscription ismany centuries old,and, of whatever age, a genuine piece of work. But its tenoris quite different from that of any otherlegend.reading.Oghamic sepulchralThe word-divisions indicate the necessary course ofIf they be observed, the transliteration will runFan : lia : do lica : coi.as : :colgac cos : obad" Beneath this stone," although a formula foreign toOghamic sepulchral language, need not necessarily be moremodern than the " sub hoc congeries lapidum" cf the Carausiusmonument in Wales, adjudged by competent scholars to some

OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSCLAKE,KING'S Co.KnockastoolcrySI. I.KING'SCOUNTY.CloiimacnoisB/. I.time before the eighth century. I presume that do lica means" jacet," thoughI am unable to explain the use of the sign ofthe past tense ;which is hard to reconcile with monumentallanguage. No such name as Conas, so far as I know, is foundin Irish nomenclature. Even were it Conan Maoil, as the countrypeople have always assumed it to be, the excessive antiquitydemanded would be discredited by the modern aspect of thelegend. One conjecture may reconcile us to these discrepancies,and that is that the true reading may lie hid undersome of the cypher systems contained in the books whichhave evidently supplied the form of the characters and thestyle of their arrangement; but, as yet, no success hasattended the effort to extract by such means anything moreintelligible than that rendering which prima facie presentsitself, however suspicious its appearance, " under this stonelies Collas (or Cosas) (the) sword-accomplished, the (fleet)footed."78. Whatever be the nature or interpretation of the MountCallan inscription,no question of forgery can arise respectinga memorial pillaron the summit of the eminence calledKnockastoolery, near Doolen Bay, on the coast road fromLisdoonvarna, in the north of the same county: but the characters,though, I think, Oghamic, are illegible.79- Neither has Galway, the next county to the north, norSouth Mayo, anything in the Ogham kind legible, thoughtraces, I am told, exist at Ross Hill, near Cong, and on the" long stone " at Kilmaine, near Ballinrobe.80. If we cross the Shannon, however, out of Galway eastward,we come, at Clonmacnois, in the King's County, on theleft bank of the river, on an unimpeached legend of what Ihave called the Scholastic variety of Ogham. It is a littleflagstone bearing the name Colman in Roman letters, withthe annexed digits, to be read backwards :in i mi..That is " Colman bocht " or Colman pauper, a designation ofhumility quite consistent with what we have seen in Kerry,but, so far as being in Ogham, not countenanced by any ofthe other numerous inscribed monuments found at Clonmac-

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 55nois, these being exclusively in the Eoman character, and KING'S Co.,in the usual and regular sepulchralformula of the Irish Ro8COMMON-Patrician, as of the Scottish Columban Church, Oroit do or PatricianBendaci do, a prayer for" or "a blessing on" the deceased.^^There isnothing of this kind in Ogham, unless the anm, which Not followedis found in about a dozen instances, stand for anima, and m g ham>imply a prayer for the soul. The distinction in the vastnumber of cases is absolute and, as between Christians,imports the existence either of independent or, what seemsmore probable, of successive organisations.81. As regards Colman Bocht, let me notice somethingwhich is calculated to mislead, in old Irish written referencesto Ogham. The word, as used, seems equally applicable toan Ogham, a Rune, or any monumental titulus. Thus, Core,son of Lugaidh, banished from Munster, seeking shelter withFeradach, King of Alba, bears letters of Bellerophon inscribedon his shield in Ogham, " If the bearer come by day, cut offhis head before nightif he come; by night, cut off his headbefore day." The King of Lochlann brings to Ireland anOgham in the hilt of his sword, obviously a Rune. The noblesand clerics of Leth Quin (Con's half of Ireland) are interred atClonmacnoisThe nobles of the Clann Cuin lieBeneath the flagged, brown, sloping cemetery,A knot or branch over each body,And an accurate Ogham name.Where what is meant is obviously a Roman-letter-writtenname; for of the inscribed tombstones from Clonmacnois,collected by Petrie, and edited with a care and learning notunworthy of his name by Miss Stokes, not one, save this ofColman Bocht, exhibits any trace of Ogham influence ;butall are inscribed in the same Hiberno-Roman character, ofwhich the Kilmalkedar alphabet stone may be taken as oneof the earliest examples.82. Leaving this famous seat of the Patrician Christianity Rathcroghan**of Leth Quin, with its round towers, sculptured crosses, andelegantly inscribed little flagstones for every personalmemorial of its dead shows forth the humility which we may

56 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSROSCOMMON. believe adorned them living, let us ascend and, recrossingthe Shannon into Roscommon, proceed towards what Ptolemyhas designated the " other Royal town " of the island, whichmay with reasonable certainty be taken to be at Rathcroghan.The earthworks of this old residence of the ConnaughtProvincial Kings still stand ten miles south from Elphin,in the centre of the vast tract of grass land stretchingfrom Boyle to Castlereagh. As Emania, the first " Regia "of Ptolemy, the remains of which still exist near Armagh,was the residence of the Ulster Kings and of Conor MacNessa, the most famous sovereign of their line, so Rathcroghanwas the seat of Conor's divorced Queen, Meave, andher second-taken husband Ailill, King of the Olnegmacht, inwhom we may without much difficulty recognise Ptolemy'sNagnatae, or, as in another and probably a better manuscriptof his geography, Nagmatee. We are here in one focus ofthe great cycle of heroic story which revolves around Conorand Meave, and preserves the renown of Cuchullin, ConallCarnach, Ferdiad, and the other champions of the twoprovinces who fought in their wars. We can hardly doubtthat such persons existed; and certainly barbaric historypresents no better marked characters than Conor and Meave :he, learned, valiant, astute, amorous, cruel, unscrupulous :she, ambitious, magnificent, reckless in the pursuit of powerand vengeance. Her name still lives in the topography ofthe country, although contemporary in the annals with thatof Augustus. It is impossible to walk over the green plainabout the Rath which she inhabited without being transportedin imagination to these ancient times, and among theactors in her war with Conor which forms the subject of thegreat Irish epic, the Tain bo Cuailnge. The circular stonewall surrounding the Relig na ree, or royal cemetery, wherethe Pagan Connacian kings and nobles he interred, is stilltraceable. About 30 yards westward is a smaller disused andchurchless cemetery, also circular, within the area of whichare the entrances to what is traditionally known as " QueenMeave's treasure-house." It is a fissure in the limestone rockwhich runs westward about 50 yards outside the circularboundary, and here an identical name has been preserved in

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 57Ogham. The roof of the cave is formed by longstones laid RQSCOMMON.across the top of the cleft, and covered by the grassy surface.A lintel over the direct entrance, which opens to the east, is RathcroghanOgham-inscribed. It exhibits an example of one of thesubsidiary group of diphthongal forms not included in theoriginal Ogham paradigm. This is the under-line curvestanding for ui, and possibly for u in its other vowel combi- 6.nations. All the characters are well cut, but whether theterminal group is meant as three digits on, or under, the naturalstem line formed by the convexity of the stone, is uncertain.If on, it is u, and the legend will readif underQRAGUISM^Qraguismu,Qraguismf,when probably Qragui may detach itself as a proper name, andthe rest of the legend remain to be regarded as a siglum or 152monogram not yet interpretable.83. The entrance to the cave from the south offers some- Rathcroghanthing more definite and of extreme interest. The lintel, whichcrosses it at the line of junction with the other approach, bearson its outer arris a name beginning with FR and ending CGIwith six vowel points between. There is nothing to indicatehow these vowel equivalents are to be divided. They arecapable of very numerous combinations, but the associated iy.consonants suggest the most probable readingorFraicciFreocci,Fraic or Freoc being a proper name, which in the Tain boFraich has local associations with Rathcroghan.84. The legend on the inner arris is even more remarkableMAQIMEDFFIMaqi Medffi.The over-line digits forming the D and the under-line digitsforming the first F are in some degree apposited, and might13.be taken as GB,Megbfi,

58 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSROSCOMMON,MAYO.MAYO.Breastagh15u.l.but I make no doubt but this slight overlap indicates no realmodification of the text, and that the first readingis the trueone. The name of Medff, here in her own peculiar crypt, is evenharder to dissociate from an historical identity than was thatof Conuri read under the shadow of Cahir Conree. But, if itbe indeed the name of the Amazonian queen, there isnothingto tell us how long after her death itmay have been borne byothers, and like some other vocables already noticed, Medffmay be masculine as well as feminine. We are impressed,perhaps awe-struck, with the possible presence of a memorialof the Helen and Semiramis of Irish epic romance, but I mustbe content to leave Rathcroghan with a sceptical mind,knowing what awaits us at the tomb of another queen laterin date. It may help to some more definite idea of the usescaves which have and will come under notice, toof manyrefer to a statement in several of the Lives of Saint Patrick,regarding a subterranean apartment in the district beyondBoyle, on the borders of Sligo. He had need for vessels forhis office, and, prompted by a dream, at a place not identified,called Slieve Grada, or " Orders Hill," found a cave, and in itan altar, and on the altar four glass chalices, with which heserved his occasion.85. With one exception, from Rathcroghan to the Atlantic,throughout southern and central Mayo, there appear to be noremains of any Ogham monument. Proceeding westwardinto the northern parts of Mayo, one reaches, at five milesbeyond Killala, the village of Mullaghnacross, within a shortdistance of which, on the lands of Breastagh, stands a veryfine Ogham-inscribed pillar.Its dimensions are nearly 12 ft.by 2^ ft. by 2 Two ft. of its arrises have originally beenpart of the inscription on oneoccupied by Ogham lettering :being buried in the earth when the stone was set upright.What is chiefly remarkable, as regards its situation, is itsgreat distance from other monuments of the Ogham class,and the singularly Patrician character of its local surroundings.It is on the immediate confines of the district ofFoghill, the site of the wood oiFocluth, from which St. Patrick,in his dream, thought he heard the voices of the Irish callinghim to his mission. In the immediate vicinity is Rathban, a

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 59residence of that Auley son of Fiachra, the contemporary and MAYO,convert of Patrick, from whom the barony takes its name, FEBMANAOH'Fiersad Tresi, in which Tresi wife of Auley was drowned ;Ross-Erc, the foundation of his daughter Sere ; Kilcummin,that of his grandson Cummin Foda ;and Dunfinne, the sceneof the capture of the murderers of his grandnephew BishopCeallagh, are all within a radius of six miles. Auley's nameis variously spelled Amalgaid, Amolugid, and Amlongad. Inthe last form itappears to survive on the Breastagh pillar.The inscription purports to commemorate some descendant ofa Coirbre, son of Auley. The early part of it, occupying thewestern arris, is defective at both beginning and end.upward normally from the right, it yields* * SDULENGESCAD *In another reading downward the word ENGEL emerges ;If readbutthere isnothing definite to guide the course ot the transliteration.On the opposite or northern arris of this face of thepillar a clue exists in a distinct maqMAQCORR3RIMAQAMMLLO[NGI]TTMaq Corrbri Maq Ammllo[ngi]tt.86. Sligo, also, if one group of two or three characters onChurch Island in Lough Gill be excepted, has no Oghams.Neither are such inscriptions known in Longford or Leitrim ;but bounding these counties on the north, Fermanagh FERMANAGH.possesses several. These all lie to the north of Lough Erneon the side of Tyrone. For the discovery of them we areindebted to Mr. Wakeman, a worthy pupil in Irish archaeologyof his former master, Petrie. In a sepulchral cairn on Topped ToppedMountain, exhibiting no trace of Christianity beyond a questionablecross incised on one of its loose stones, he found thelegendNettacu,which may decide us to regard the Netta rather as the componentof a proper name than as an independent vocable.Another fine observed pillar by Mr. Wakeman near the IrvinestownStation on the railway to Ballyshannon, had the ill fateto be dressed for inspection by a stonecutter, whose restoreddigits cannot be relied on.23

60 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSTYRONE.Castlederg.Aghascribba1987. Further north, a cromlech at Castlederg, in Tyrone,was some time ago an object of much antiquarian interest,not as exhibiting Oghams of the kind we have been examining,but as presenting one of the very few examples ofincised scorings hitherto found in that class of rude stonemonuments. I say was, because I hear it has been destroyedby the farmer on whose land it stood. Fortunately a cast ofthe scorings exists, and a careful drawing of the structure asit stood. There can be no doubt that the scorings precededthe imposition of the cap-stone, but I do not think they couldever have had a phonetic significance. They belong, however,to a well-marked and widely-extended class of sculp turings,which may be designated pseudo Oghams, seeminglyimitated from true Oghamic examples by persons ignorant ofphonetic characters, but impressed with the value and mysteryof writing.88. A very fine and interesting monument of the trueOgham type, brought to light by Mr. Wakeman, stands atAghascribba, near the centre of Tyrone, in that district of thecountry approached from Pomeroy. It is a high, rough, butnot solitary region. At the time of the Ulster Plantationthe native Irish expelled from the fertile lowlands of Tyronewere fain to take up their abode in these recesses of theMunter Loney mountains. Here they continue to speak theirold native language, and preserve their traditional courtesyand friendly manners, under circumstances which might wellhave barbarised a people of less generous attributes. Theylook on their monuments with reverence not untinged withsuperstition. The Ogham-bearing pillar was, at one time,thrown down by the farmer on whose groundit stood. "Hehad the floods in his " byre," they say, within the week," andwas glad to set itup again. The fairies, they tell you, maketheir cavalcades about the great standing-stone in the nextfield, and a deep and prolonged musical note is sometimesheard from the detached stone standing eastward of the circle,which they call Crucan attia na boithie, or the Mount of theFord or Field of the Bothie, higher up the hill. This littlecircle seems the remains either of a cairn or of a stone-builtBothie or bee-hive cell. There is nothing on the inscribed

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 61monu- TYRONE.pillar to indicate whether it be a Christian or Paganment. All that is legible of the legend is composed of overlinecharactersDOTeCTaMQI * * * *The nnder-line digits which expressed the patronymic, beingon the adjoining face exposed to the north, are almost whollyobliterated and illegible.The name is not found in Irishrecords so far as known to me, unless it be the Totect of theBook of Invasions, where it is ascribed to one of a pre-Milesian race, being, I would imagine, an earlier form of theTudida of Adamnan and Toddadac of the Dunbell Ogham.The name Aghascribba seems to signify the Field of theWriting, and presumably carries back the existence of themonument to the first imposition of townland names anindefinite retrospect. To whatever ageitmay belong, onecannot look around on the wide tracts of moor and craggywaste intervening between its site and the nearest ecclesiasticalfoundation (atLower Bodoney, seven miles further down thevalley) without a sense of wonder at the art of writing havingso early penetrated into such a wilderness. Bodoneyis theBoth domnach or Domus dominica of the Patrician establishment.Both, a house, is peculiar to this region, as Bovevagh(Both Medhbha, the House of Meave), Boydafea (Both dafiach, the House of the two Ravens), Raphoe (Rath-both, theFort-house) ; but, elsewhere through Ireland, the equivalentword employed in similar compositions is Tech, tectum.89. We are here near the watershed between Lough Foyle Knock Many59and Lough Neagh, and, returning southward over the,hightableland of central Tyrone, come at itsverge on the headwatersof the Blackwater River, running into the latter basin.The valley of the upper Blackwater, about Augher andClogher, known locally in Irish records as the Clossagh, is afertile and beautiful region, sheltered on the north by arange of mountain, one outlying eminence of which overlookingthe rich tract about Augher, interposes between thatplain and the secluded valley where Carleton, our Irish EttrickShepherd, was born and educated. This is Knock Many, socalled as being the Hill of Bani, wife of Teuthal Techtmar andmother of Felimy Rechtmar, royal names familiar in the

62 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSTYRONE. pedigrees of all the great Highland and Island families ofScotland. It was in Scotland Teuthal spent his early manhoodduring his exile, consequent on the Attacottic rebellion,when the unfree or tributary tribes (Aitheach Tuatlia) revoltedagainst their Milesian or Scotic conquerors. In Scotlandprobably he married Bani, daughter of a king, it is said, ofFinland. Assembling his forces here, Teuthal returned toIreland, where, after making great havoc of the servile tribes,he reinstated himself securely on the throne, and in the yearof our era 111, if we may accept the testimony of our Annals,lost his queen who, it is added, on the same authority, wasburied on Knock Many, in the Clossagh. The sides of themountain are thickly wooded ;the summit is bare, and on thesummit are the remains of a great sepulchral tumulus ofseveral chambers, still partly covered by the remains of theircairn, but for the most part open to the sky. The stones ofone of these chambers only remain. Two of them arecovered with barbaric designs of the same general style andcharacter as that at New Grange and the monuments on theBoyne and at Slieve-na-Calliagh, another great assemblageof sepulchral tumuli near Oldcastle, on the borders of Meathand Cavan.90. The general feeling of all these efforts at sculpturaldecoration is the same, and theyall have a strikingresemblance to the ornamentation seen in the Mani-Neludand Gavr-inis monuments in Brittany. On the eastern flankingstone of the principal cell these concentric rings andparallel zig-zags exhibit a certain degree of regularity. Undulatinglines form part of what looks like a work havingsome significance. Groups of these in definite numbers flowparallel to one another from other lines on which they abut.Other groups of straight lines stand on or depend from these.The whole aspect of the sculpture gives the idea of somekind of writing invested in a masquerade of barbaric flourishesand bizarreries. The same idea isconveyed by straightdigit-like indentations cut across the edge of a wallingslab at the opposite side, which recall at first sight veryvividly one Ogham-like species of Rune. ' The Rune, it willbe remembered, is either ordinary alphabetic, or cryptic, Rune.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 63The cryptic Rune may be indicated, either by branched stems, TYRONE.or by longer and shorter digits arranged across a band; theshorter ones indicating the ait or category to which the letterbelongs, the longer ones its sub-number in the ait.(IllIIIIf it could be said that the digits which cross the band formedby the edge of the slab, here, had definite distinctions inlength or otherwise, we would look with the keenest interestfor the three of one kind and the two of the other whichshould yield us the B of Bani ;but if Bani's name be here, itis concealed under some other device ;for the lines are onlynine in number, and are too obscure in their terminationsto enable one to say whether they vary in lengthor otherwiseon any system. They look like a pseudo-Rune, justas the flourished lines with which they are associated looklike pseudo-Oghams imitated without understanding, as wesee the straight strokes surrounding the head in a northernbracteate representing the Byzantine name illegible to theartist. If, then, this be the tomb of Bani, which, on the evidence,we can hardly doubt, we must either conclude that atthe beginning of the second century, an ordinary Oghamlegend was not procurable even for the wife of the monarch,or else that the ordinary Ogham was in her case elaboratedand invested with aesthetical mystery, just as we see plainwriting disguised in our own days in the affected alphabeticsingularities of addresses and architectural plans. Our minds,to either conclusion tillhowever, will be better not made upthe whole subject shall have undergone a much fuller examination,and at more competent hands than mine.

CHAPTER IV.Armagh, chief seat of the Patrician church Inscribed dolmen at Lennan MullochOgham Sepulchral cairns at Slieve-na-Calliagh; Tailten the Irish Olympia, celebratedfor its games, &c. The Boyne tumuli New; Grange CastletimonOgham Donard; one of the three Christian churches founded by Palladius A.D.430-1 Killeen Cormac : its connection with Duftach Macculugar, companionof St. Patrick the :burying place of his sept The Hy-Lugair and Hy-Cormaic,descendants of Cucorb, King of Leinster, slain AD. 119 Ogham-inscribed stonesat Killeen Cormac, Gowran, Claragh, Dunbell, Ballyboodan, Windgap, Ballyvooney,Island, Drumlohan ;cave under its Killeen containing several Oghamlegends Kilgrovan Ardmore ; its Bound Tower Saint Declan's Bed, hispedigree.AKMAGH,WONAGHAK.MONAGHAN.Lcnnan19u. c.91. WITH the exception of some doubtful scorings atCorrody, in the County of Derry, and Mr. Wakeman's reportof a supposed Ogham cave in Donegal, 1 know of nothingOghamic in the northern parts of Ulster. But the neighbourhoodof Armagh, the chief place of the Patrician church,furnishes one example. It comes from the vicinity of PaganEmania, but bears a cross, described by Dr. Reeves, Bishopof Down and Connor.92. Southward from Armagh lies the County of Monaghan,In its hilly and rough division, to the north of Ballybay, in theparish of Tullycorbet, at a place called Lennan, we encountera cromlech inscribed with characters. They are not indeterminatescorings as at Castlederg, but characters, someof which look like Runes, and one which resembles aScholastic variety of Ogham. They were regarded byO'Donovan, when he examined the monument in 1834, as aforgery. I do not think that opinion will be entertained afteran inspection of the cast. O'Donovan failed to observe avery significant sculpture above these characters. It lookslike a galley, as galleys are represented on the sculpturedmonuments of Brittany and Scandinavia. Save the scoringson this and the Castlederg cromlech, and channel-like indentationson the upper side of the covering stone at Brennans-

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 05town, near Dublin, I know of no other inscribed dolmens inT i i CAVAN,Ireland.MBATH

66 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSto this fantastic sort of figuring is found on the lintel of thesouthern cell of the central cairn. Here are what have verygenerally been supposed to be Ogham digits,some of themcrossing the arris ;but the greater number on the flat, andindependent of that or any other stem-line. They muchresemble the Knock Many scorings. They have all theappearance of being contemporaneous. They have, no doubt,a purpose, and, possibly, a phonetic meaning. Certainly, ifthe Ogham be a development of any earlier 'system, we arehere among its roots and first manifestations, and the natureof that other system, if it existed, will have to be investigatedon the assumption that some relation holds between thesefigures and the numbers of their lines, and the undiscoveredaicmes and sub-numbers of some primitive alphabet.OrnamentationQ5 t In these cairns have been found considerablefvuHdiifwcu. collections of bone objects, some of which bear inciseddesigns of interlaced ornamentation, as if intended as matricesfor metal-work. Were we to accept these as records of thebuilders, we should conclude that the fantastic figuring ofthe cell walls was executed by those who could have coveredthem with elegant and regular pattern work if they hadpleased, but who adopted the barbaric design, or seeming wantof design, as something perhaps traditionary and possiblyhieratic. The same may be said of most of the caveswhich have yielded engraved bones elsewhere. The etchingson the bones contrast strongly with the barbarous rudeness oftheir surroundings. I see no way of escaping the conclusionthat a higher art co-existed with the use of traditionarybarbarisms in sepulchral monuments, unless we suppose theserifled cairns and tumuli to have been used as hiding-placesand workshops by Wayland Smiths of a later period and,;in this view, it may be worth remarking that in Irishtradition such caves are regarded as the haunts of musiciansand artificers of the old Tuatha de Danaan race, who firstbrought in the knowledge of the arts, and, on their conquestby the Milesians, hid themselves underground.98. From the Slieve-na-Calliagh cairns to those of theBoyiie is a distance of about twenty miles. The Boyne tumuliand their chambers are too well known to require any length-

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 7ened description.I would but call attention to the sculpturing MEATH,of a slab from New Grange, which it will be seen offers in itsto the Bani monument. Newgeneral design a great similarityThere are the same flowing zig-zags and concentric circles, ^but none of the wilder grotesques, either of the Bani stone orof the intermediate group. It would be hard to conceive ofanything phonetic lying hid under these forms. One device,however, does exist on the headstone of the western cell atNew Grange, which certainly has a monogrammatic and insome degree an Oghamic appearance. It will recall veryvividly the discontinuous cross lines of the Tyvoria example.It can hardly be but that, after what has been seen, somesystematic examination of these devices on the Irish Paganmonuments of Tyrone and Meath will be undertaken bycompetent observers, who may be able to say definitivelywhether these are merely insensible ornamentation or phoneticelements fantastically disguised. Any traces Meath may retainare, I believe, illegible, or quasi Oghamic.97. Neither does Dublin, save in one illegible example at DUBLIN.Portmarnock, afford local examples. Those assembled at the PortmnmRoyal Irish Academy have been in part, and will be, for the M ^remainder, noticed in connection with their places of origin,so far as these can now be ascertained. There are two ofthem which I have been unable to ascertain whence theycome, further than that I believe them to be from Kerry,probably sent up by Mr. Hitchcock. Lest this suppositionshould be erroneous, I think it better to notice them here.The first presents another example of the name Gusacht,already noticed it is an old and well-known;name in Irishhagiology. The first bishop of Ardagh was Gusact son ofMilchu, Saint Patrick's pagan bondmaster. The inscriptionis well preserved and complete. Its difficulties arise fromthe absence of the usual Maqi, or perhaps from the absenceof Maqi in its usual spellingThe word-division will depend on whether Gosucti be takenas the genitive, or Gosucteas, which is more in accordance&c.

68 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSDUBLIN,WICKLOW.with the Corkaguiny example. If the first, we have Gosuctismosac, seemingly a term of humiliation, followed by mapi(the equivalent of Maqi) Ni. Maqini and Maqi Ne are foundelsewhere, Ni being apparently the genitive of the name A 7 o,also found further on. If read Gosucteas, the second nameshould be taken as one of the numerous class formed in mo,"my," probably Mosocma. Grounds have been thought toexist for reading this Mosocra, the name of a saint in Irishhagiology but I think there has been a mistake of fact. If;read either of the latter ways, the X character should not betaken as a vocable, and the residue be read as " ini, here."It seems to me that fewer difficultiesattend the reading firstsuggestedGosucti smosac mapi Ni.The stone of " Gusact Mucosus son of No."Conf. Spumosus ( ).The second Academy stonelegendMUCOTU D DC ADD ACCof uncertain origin bears theWICKLOW.Castlethnon3(5u. c.where the resemblance of the vocables Tuddaddac to a propername found on one of the Kilkenny monuments, noticedfurther on, seems to detach Muco as possibly an equivalent ofMaqi in some secondary stage of filiation, a matter worthyof consideration in connection with Mucoi. I do not take Muas equivalent to the " mo " of Mocatoc, whose name has beenthought to be recorded here.98. Wicklow County now takes up the chain of connection,the links of which will become closer as we return towardsthe south. At Castletimon, in Dunganstown parish, betweenthe remains of a cromlech and the sea, at the side of the highroad, lies a large boulder-like block, which may have betterserved the purpose of a coped grave-stone than a pillarmonument, bearing very legibly alongits rounded arrisNETACARINETACAGNI.What will first strike us is that here are two names conceivedin the A's B formula, and that neta enters as a componentinto both, like the netta of earlier observed examples.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 69" Netacar's Netacag " has certainly an odd aspect, and WICKLOW.induces a suspicion that some other name is concealedunder adventitious syllables, as in the formolad processalready referred to. Carantoc would be the name most likelyto be so hidden, and neta merely a suffarcination and disguise.99. Behind us, in the mountain country dividing Wicklow Glendaioughfrom Kildare, are the ruins of St. Kevin's ecclesiastical City of*^Glendalough, another centre of Patrician teaching and disciplinebut neither;here do we find any trace of Oghamicwriting.100. If we cross the mountain, however, towards Kildare, Donardand descend on Donard, lying at its western base, we areagain in a well-marked Ogham district, including the remarkablecemetery of Killeen Cormac, which contains four examples.In the stone fences about Donard fragments of Ogham monumentsare numerous, and the names of the farmers who brokethem up are remembered. A short mile from the village onthe south-west stands the Ogham-inscribed pillarcalled thePiper's Stone. The common tradition of profane dancers Piper's stone.and musicians being turned into stone exists here as in mostother districts abounding in stone monuments. The Piper'sStone is excessively rugged, and its legend most difficult todecipher. It shows the X character, and seems to readINIGI.101. Donard is and always has been accepted as one of thethree Christian churches founded by Palladius during his shortmission to the Irish in A.D. 430-1. The authorityis of venerable,not to say respectable, antiquity. The three churchesdesignated are Killfinte, Tech na Romanach, and DomnachArda. Killfinte has, on plausible grounds, been supposed tobe Killeen Cormac. There is no question that the House ofthe Eomans is the present Tigroney, near Wicklow, nor thatDomnach Arda Dominica domus alia is Donard. AlthoughTigroney offers no Ogham remains, yetthe other two sites must detract from the force of what hastheir existence atpreviously been said respecting their absence from Glendaloughand the other seats of that Patrician Christianitywhich followed on the mission of Palladius. It is more probable,however, that the Ogham use spread hither from au r

70 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKILDARE centre further south, towards which its evidences extend inan unbroken connection and increasing numbers from henceKHieenCormacto the great Oghamic tract of South Munster.102. Killeen Cormac liesbeyond Dunlavin, six miles to thewest, in the lands of Cobbinstown, in a detached portion of/ r .the parish of Davidstown, in the County of Kildare. It is stillused as a regular burial place, although without any remainsof an associated church.It is a mound of considerable dimensions,piled up by successive interments from the ground level.Were the upper strata removed and the superficial sepulchralconstructions laid bare, it would, judging from what can beseen of these round the under margin, present much the sameappearance as a denuded cemetery of apparently the Paganperiod near Glencolunxkill, in the County of Donegal. Eachinterment is in its own stone-built cist, and these are oflarge dimensions. The entrances are seen to two suchsepulchral cellce of the second storey, if I may so say, of thisexuvial edifice, divided by a stone-pillar, which bears tracesfor theof Ogham on its top, and has down each side a groovereception of the closing stone.103. At the foot of this most ancient and remarkable gravemound, near the entrance to the level surrounding enclosure,lies a fine pillar-stone inscribed in Roman and in Oghamcharacters.There can be no question that the word "Druides"forms part of the Roman epigraph, and this being the onlyinstance of the mention of Druids on any known lapidarymonument anywhere, the double inscription cannot but beinterest. It seems to me to beregarded with extraordinaryin part at least bilingual and biliteral. The Roman epigraphmay readIVVENEDRVIDESJvvene druides,or, owing to a flaw makingit doubtful if the fifth letter be RorN1VVEREDRVJDKSJvveredruides,or, by an allowable use of the two first characters in theirnumerical valueIV (that isQuatuor) vere druides.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 71the KIThus, it may signify the stone of " the Druid Youths," orstone " of Juvan the Druid " (for the es genitive need not, inview of the Welsh examples, embarrass us), or the stone " oflet us examine the associ-the Four true Druids." At this stageated Ogham and see which construction it may favour. Theobvious regular-marked digits readUFANOSAFIKFRATTOS.Ufanosafiefrattos.Taking it as Ufano safi,and considering that saei is the Various readmodernand middle Irish for sage, wise man, sophos,it^^^appears not an unlikely echo of Juvan the Druid. But where juveneDruidesis the J 1 It has no regular equivalent in Ogham ; and we stone 'may ask is not the s necessary to complete Ufanos, whetherit be nominative or genitive? If so, we should be left toutilise the second word as afi, accepting Stokes and Rhys'sversion of it as the early Celtic for " descendant of." Then weshould enquire for the patronymic. The reading has hithertobeen Sahattos, but the plaster cast taken from the papermould shows distinctly, though faintly, what the stone itself,overshadowed by trees as it is, could never reveal, that thereading is Efrattos and " Ufan of the descendants of Efratt,";would be a better sequence than "Ufan the sage," with" " Efratt standing byitself. But there are some scorings orcharacters, besides, which must also be taken into account.An imperfect d, not in parallelism with the vertical digits wehave been discussing, precedes the Ufan. I call it imperfectbecause one digit is boldly and the other very slenderlyincised, and over the last digit of the / a delicately carvedvery minute t,stands just above the line. Here the Quatuorvere druides reading begins to receive some countenance. Aswe omit or bring in these supernumerary characters, we mayhave Ufan or Dufan or Duftan, or were it allowable to take nfor its opposite, Duftaq, and so the efforts of my learned friend, Rev. J. SheartheRev. Mr. Shearman, who has long laboured to connectt*ect9%^Killeen Cormac with Duftac Macculugar, the companion of Cormac withSt. Patrick, would be rewarded. I cannot take upon me f^^^mtodo that violence to this text, thoughI am aware that />/'/ t'M.scholars of eminence do not shrink from such changes whenthe exigencies of other inscriptions seem to requireit. The

OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKlLDAJlE.KilleenCormac connectedwithDuftach'sCucorb, Kingof Leinster,slain A.D. 119ancestor of the,Hy-Conand HyLugair.Saint Abban :contention forhis relics.minuscular t is a very small object, but not more minute thansome Ogham characters, which I cannot decipher, occurringon a twin pillar lying beside. A very faint and rudelyoutlinedhead of the Saviour is picked in on the upper face ofthis monument, and on the arris to the left these Oghamsare incised. Whatever we may say of Duftac himself, theconnection of the place with Duftach's sept of the Hy-Lugair,is well made out. The bounds of the sept, as laid downin the old Irish books, embrace it. It is the only topographicalKilleen in the Diocese of Glendalough, and aKilleen " ulugair, on the other side of the mountain," isenumerated among the possessions of that see in A.D. 1183.Then, Duftach himself is recorded, with many other eminentecclesiastics, to have been buried in the dinnlacha or marshhillocksof the Hy-Lugair, which, from the peculiarity of the"'position, can hardly mean any other place. Next, as regardsthe name Killeen Cormaic. The Hy-Lugair were a branch ofthe Hy Cormaic, both septs being descendants of Cormac, sonof Cucorb, King of Leinster, who was slain A.D. 119, by FelimyRechtmar. Eighth in descent from this Cormac was SaintAbban, whose designation in old Irish genealogical descriptionwould be Maccu Cormaic. On the death of this holy persona contention for his relics sprang up between the men of NorthLeinster where he died, and those of South Leinster, wherehe had chiefly ministered. The feud was composed by theappearance of two wains drawn by miraculously sent oxena common device in such cases, each carrying the seemingremains of the saint, which, taking different directions, ledthe combatants off the field, and after the entombment,vanished in the fords of neighbouring rivers. Now, the localtradition at Killeen Cormaic is that the Cormac buried there,and from whom the place has its name, was a king whoseremains were brought thither by certain oxen, which, aftera hound accompanying them had indicated the spot for theentombment, by leaving the impress of his paw on the headof a standing-stone, went off and vanished in the River Greise.King Arthur's hound, which left the track of his paw in Buiethto serve as one of Nennius's wonders of Britain, may havesuggested that part of the story relating to the dog's paw still

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 73shown at the Killeen, but the rest of the traditionhas such a KILDARE.likeness to the story of the descendant of Cormac, son ofCucorb, as may lead to the probable conclusion that his arethe obsequies referred to. Let it be observed further that theson of Cormac, from whom the two tribes or Finne of theHy-Cormaic and the Hy-Lugair sprang, was Labraid, and inreference to Labraid, which happens to correspond with thethird person singular of the present tense of labraim, " Ispeak," let me recall the story of Labraid Longseach told story ofby Keating. "Does the comer by sea (Longseach) speak y> Labraid Long.asked the druid of the supposed dumb exile, who had returnedwith his Gaulish auxiliaries to take vengeance on his enemies." Labraid " he speaks was the reply, and so Labraid, theSpeaker, the eloquent, became a noted name. If we haverightly identified the hillocks in the Hy-Lugair marshes, it willnot be Duftach Maccu-Lugair, and Abban Maccu Cormaicalone, whose sepulchres we may expect to find here, but thosealso of several other eminent descendants of this Labraid ;including three sons of Duftach and a female saint of greatcelebrity, Cuach or Coningen,all of whom are recorded to lietogether in the same " Dinnlacha." Supposing then, the truereading to be quatuor vere druides, Mr. Shearman may be wellexcused for his persistence in believing that at least undertheir " Ogham names," if not ostensibly, Duftach himself ands'ome of the three others are not only interred here, butmonumentally commemorated in the inscription under consideration;for four persons being indicated, and afitaken asmeaning " descendant of," it is plain that the same descent,from some one here called by his Ogham name of Efrattos, ispredicated for each of them and; Efrattos,it must be owned,has all the appearance of a Greekish equivalent of Labraid,the speaker. If this be so, we may see that whether thereading be luvene Druides, reflected in the Ufanos afi ef ratiosof the Ogham, or Quatuor vere Druides reflected in thefourfold reading suggested by the supplemental and minusculardigits, it would be equally true of all to designate himor them as de nepotibus Labradii.104. But it will have occurred to you to ask, How couldthese great grandsons of Labraid, who was but fourth in

74 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKlLDARE,KILKENNY.Cormac" deceddastone.KILKENNY.Gowraii/ r.descent from Cucorb, have possibly lived in the fifth century?Abban was seventh only from Cucorb, which, at thirty yearsto the generation, places him (A.D. 119 + 210 = 329) morethan a century before the commission of Palladius. Itmaybe that some generations have dropped out of the pedigree ;but if the discrepancy could have been explained on thatsuggestion, the old Irish hagiolo gists would not have hadoccasion to allege, as they do, that this Abban lived threehundred and sixteen years, being the time necessary from thepresumable date of his birth to bring him into chronologicalconformity with the Annals. We stand, indeed, amazed atthe vision of possible pre-Palladian times, which seems torise before us in contemplating this mortuary hillock in theHy-Lugair marshes.105. Halfway round the mount to the right of the "Druides"stone lies, or formerly lay, another displaced block, inscribedin Ogham round both arrises and the topMAQIDDECCEDAMAQIMARIN.Maqi ddecceda maqi Marin.We recognise the decedda, but Marin, seemingly complete, isnew, and, unless n be separable, not easily reconcilable toother forms.106. Beyond the " decedda " stone half way round to theright, stands a pillar bearing digits in a new arrangement.Here one digit is made to serve as stem-line for others, in akind of sub-virgular dependence, obviously contrived forcryptic purposes.occur further on.Another example of the same device willIt seems to be a kind of rebus for doftos.107. Turning westward and southward from Killeen Cormac,we cross the rich garden of Carlow into the County of Kilkenny,where at Gowran Abbey we find another cross-signed flagstonewhich has once borne a long Ogham legend, now muchmutilated as well as the cross.The crutched heads of thearms of the cross have been chipped off, as it would seem, toform the arrises on which the remains of the Ogham text arefound, an apparent evidence of the prior existence of thecross, quite contrary to what has often been advanced regardingthe supposed earlier inscription of the Oghamin suchcases. The frequent Maqi Mucoi is recognisable on one arris.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 75On the other, remains of what mayLaserian inthe inflated formLASICAREIGNI.have been the name KILKENNY.108. At Tulloherin, in the same neighbourhood, distinctbut illegible remains of anotherexist on a truncatedOghampillar near the base of the round tower in the parish graveyardand at the ruined church of; Claragh, built into theAvail over the western doorway, a long stone is seen havingthe legendTASEGAGNI MUCOI MAQR * * * *the masonry concealing the rest of the patronymic. Here is"Mucoi" without a maqi preceding, used apparently asdesignating the status or character of Tascen, the personcommemorated. Haigh's mucoi, " daughter," would suit thecontext, but so to conclude would be premature.109. In the adjoining parish of Dunbell to the west thereare traces of excavations from which two very finepillars, now in the Museum of the RoyalOghamHistorical and ArchaeologicalAssociation at Kilkenny, were extracted, many yearsago. The site does not appear to have been ecclesiastical.The stones were broken in numerous fragments by the farmerfor more convenient removal off the land, but were fortunatelydiscovered by the Rev. James Graves and Mr. Prim,two active officers of the Society, in time to prevent theirconversion to sordid uses. Reconstructed, by fitting theirfragments together, they are both legible, and readaoBRAN^TT^SMAQID^CBJTJDA(recalling the possible "Dugreddos" of the Ballynahuntexample), andSAFFIQEGITT C^ATTAC\jwhere the double d may be a c, and the name a form ofToichthec, as reflected in the Cahir-na-gat legend, where weread Togittacc. Saffiqeg seems a strange appellation, butwe meet itagain in its less dignified form Sfaccuc, still avery odd-sounding collocation of vocables, and suggestive ofsome trick of literal antithesis such as may have more thanonce occurred to our minds in other cases.

76 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKILKENNY,31' L110. Ballyboodan, in Knocktopher parish, more to thenas furnished its last acquisition to the KilkennyLapidary Museum. It is a fine pillar, still legible enough toshow that it records the name ofCorbipoi maqi labridd (a).WATERFORD.Wind gap3i. c." Corb, that was son of Labraid," the "poi" being expressedby X with its attendant vowels. Labrid may be of anyantiquity, but Corb, " wicked," " lewd," " accursed," sounds inself-deprecation and savours of the cell. Another recentaddition to the Kilkenny Museum is noticed by Mr. Atkinson.Not having seen it, I abstain from reproducing the suggestedreading.111. Crossing the Suir from Kilkenny through Tipperaryinto Waterford at Carrick-on-Suir, we have in front and onthe right the rugged group of the Commeragh Mountains on;the left, the woods and far-spreading glades of Curraghmore.A road leading to Rathgormuc passes, at about two milesfrom Carrick, through the lands of Windgap, where in a cavein a circular earth fort, locally called Rath-Coolnamuck, aboldly cut flagstone preserves the legendMODDA.GNI MAQI GATIGNI MUCOI LUGONI.Ballyquin3l.r." Of Modan, son of Gatin Mucoi of Lugon." Itmay seem toyou that it continues to favour the hypothesis of Haigh, that" mucoi " signifies daughter.112. Taking the high road towards Curraghmore andKilmacthomas, we come, at 3^ miles from Carrick, on a tractabounding in stone monuments at Ballyquin, where the greatstone which appears to have borne the legend Catabar mocofiriqorrb stands at the right side of the high-road, serving as amassive and lofty gate-post. There are few more imposingmonuments, or more like what we might be inclined to supposesurvivals from Pagan times, in Ireland. Cromlechs exist nearit, and a double-chambered cave, probably sepulchral. Cromlechs,however, need not be regarded as all pre-Christian. AtBallina, in Mayo, the lac na tri maoil is a perfect cromlechthough raised over persons put to death in the seventh centuryand the;moco of Cathbar's family name may appear to

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 77than the WATERFORD.readers of Adamnan's life of Columba less antiquemore frequent maqi.113. If we proceed southward from Kilmacthomas we reach Baiiyvooney*the sea coast near the picturesquelittle town of Stradbally. tAbout half a mile to the east at Baiiyvooney, in a secludedglen running down to the sea shore, is a holy well coveredover by stone slabs, all sadly bemired and broken, but two ofthem bearing Ogham-inscribed names of novelty and interest.The firstNetafroqi maqi qit.(A)The qit, as a proper name, need not revolt us. Cam Kit isthe tomb of Cath, the slayer of Queen Meave in Roscommon.Netafroq may be readily recognised as Natfraic in its statedress. We continue to find Neta entering into name-composition,and begin to reconcile our minds to rejecting theidea of its being a separate vocable. The fragments of thesecond, put together, yield the epigraph,with the elegant associated namesQrita o maqi lobat, (B)A/tnia, Gracolini.One naturally asks, Were these the names in religion of Qrittand Lobat respectiyely1 and whence came the classical tastewhich so long ago brought these non-Celtic sounds into apastoral recess of the Waterford sea-coast ?114. I must crave your patience to refer to some ofthe monuments of early Irish church history. The name of^Engus the Culdee, who flourished in the reign of Aid Ornighe, ^,,gus theA.D. 793 to 817, is known as that of the author of two very Culdce -venerable religious compositions one, which has been editedby Dr. Whitley Stokes, a surprising monument of palseographicand philological accomplishment, as it is also asplendid example of literary purity and elegance in the use ofour language, the Felire or Fasti of the Saints, especially His " Feiire,"those of Ireland ;and the other which still awaits the hand e^' d b y Drofthe modern scholar, his Litany, partly published by Petrie Stokes.in his Essayon Irish Ecclesiastical Architecture. In theLitany ^Engus invokes various holy persons and companies of His " Litany.

78 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSWATERFOBD. religious men and women, Romans, Italians, Gauls, Britons,Saxons, who had flocked to Ireland in primitive Christiantimes in search of the happiness afforded by the ascetic life.Doubtless we are here, at Tubber Kill Eilte, near the site ofsome Latin ccenobium of these early times, and truly no placecould be found better fitted for a tranquil and contemplativelife.island 115. Another remarkable legend exists at a place calledIsland, near the sea, on the opposite side of Stradbally. Onone side of the stone is inscribed95CUNETaSMA[QJIGU^,and on the other, reading upwardor, read reverselyQomagecafec,netasegemon.I acknowledge my inability to determine which is right.We shall find an equally perplexing choice set before us inthe principal inscription at Ardmore, of which presently.Drumlohan 116. The rath-cave of Drumlohan is the next point to which21we shall proceed ; but I must here speak from my ownKilieen withcave.(A)drawings, in which I recognise the same liability to error asin the drawings of others. Drumlohan lies two miles northfrom Stradbally, a rough boggy country, through which runsthe drum or ridge of arable land givingit its name. Withina wide circular earthen fort, exists an entirely disused Kilieen.In removing part of the circular embankment, a cavewas found extending under it and partaking of its curve.The stones forming the side walls and roof almost all bearOgham legends, but, having been inscribed before they wereturned to this use, have for the most part portions of theirtexts concealed. Imperfect, however, as many of them are,they introduce us to further new and characteristic localnames, and possibly to something new in the monotonousvocabulary hitherto employed. The lintel stone over theentrance seems to me to read along one arris and round theheadmanumagu nogati mo (coi).

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 79and along the opposite arris,Macarb.WATERFORD.Mac Arb, we learn from the Brehon Laws, is the designationof one who has graduated in poetry.117. The fourth roofing slab presents the name, DmmhhanCaluno/iq maqi mucoi,with following characters which Mr. Brash reads, I believerightly, litof, so far as they are visible. We have here thefirst example of a class of early Munster names in whichfie,we shall often meet with.118. The sixth roofing slab on one arris has what I take to (C)be the name in the nominative,and on the other,Lafic,Maqini.If Ni be the patronymic, we might supposeit to be thegenitive of some such form as Na, which we shall meetwith hereafter; and here again we find ourselves introducedto a monosyllabic nomenclature somewhat strange tonames of the like kind inthe eye, but corroborated by manythe older records, such as Al, En, Un, Id, Ith, &c.119. The seventh roofing stone is inscribed on all its angles. (D)The cave being near the surface, it is easily stripped, andwhen exposed exhibits a continuous and nearly perfectlegendCunalegea maqi c ( ) I ar Celuufiq fed (p ?).Remembering the Qeniloci of St. Manchan's, and theQeniloegni of Martramane, we recognise the principal namewhich probably was in its local form Culoc or Cenlogha, son ofsomeone whose name seems to have begun with C, and tohave ended with 1. We also have sufficient examples tofamiliarise us with Celufic as a personal name ;but theparticle " ar " between is new. " Ar," whether in modern orancient Irish, so far as my little knowledge extends, whenused as a preposition means " on," " at," " for," and if this beitsemployment and meaning here, it is the first equivalent yet(B)

80 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSWATEKFOBD.met with of the " at " and " after" of Runic sepulchral legends.Thorstein set this stone " at " his father Thorkill. Sweno letraise this stone " after " his mother. Such is the Norse.epitaph in its simplest form. But it puts our Celtic " A sonof B," or even " this, A son of B for C," as I take it, so far, tomean to some discredit in point of expressiveness and;when itgoes beyond the simple formula, thoughstill concise,it is full, predicative, biographic, and even picturesqueto an extent not matched by the epitaphs of any other people.If I have read the legend aright, another word of necessarysignificance to complete the statement remains after Culuficfed, offering to us, if we be willing to accept a Latin formulain Irish company, the "complete meaning : I, Cunalegea, son(or daughter, we may probably be disposed to say) of C.,have made this for Celufic." Two faint indentations follow,which may be o. It would, perhaps, extend your complaisancetoo far were I to suggest opus or ojficium, althoughauthority might be found for both, but in non-Celtic association.My reading, however, not being supported by a cast,must be taken for what it is worth, considering that Mr. Brash(275) has read the charactersCunalegea maqicetai desradcq fed.120. The last legend exhibited by the cross-laid lintels ofthe roof yields the very archaic-looking names( E) Igu maqi dag,(F)and I am unable at this time to saywhether the text iscomplete, though I have no doubt it is rightly transliterated.121. The wall stone to the left at the entrance has thelegendBir maqi mucoi rottais.It may be Bir, son of " Mucoi " Rottais ; but, if so, we havehere a genitive in ais not countenanced by any otherexample. Bir is not found as a proper name in the books, sofar as I know, although among such names as have beenlately enumerated it need not be considered very singular.But birrotais has a meaning, and if found by itself would

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 81readily, after what we have seen, be taken as a name of dis- WATEBFOUD.paragement. Here again Maqi Mucoi, if not a step in pedigree,could not be other than an interjection.122. The third wallingstone is inscribed on the faceWhat may(GMaqini. )be at the back cannot be ascertained.123. The fifth walling stone shows the namesOdafe maqi Denafe, (H )both new, and forMr. Brash.both of which I rely on the accuracy of124. On the right, or western, side of the cave is only oneinscription. It occurs on the block fifth from the entrance.I read itDigos maqi muco(i),(i)with probably an unseen continuation behind.125. That these stones have come ready inscribed from theadjoining Killeen, or, as it is called in this part of the country,Killeena, seems highly probable, but the construction of thecave has exhausted the supply. Looking at the remains asthey exist, one would be disposed to say, The Killeen wasfirst, the encircling Rath next, and the Rath-cave made fromthe spoil of the dismantled cemetery.Returning to the coast, as we approach Dungarvan, KUgrovananother deserted, but not wholly dismantled Killeena is 31reached at Kilgrovan. The placeisopen and arable. Alittle spot is left untilled overlooking the sea. Four rude flagstoneswere here set up as pillars when I first visited it:one only is standing now. The impression givenis thatthey have been brought together out of a larger area.They are all inscribed. One bears excessively coarse and nowillegible indentations, but evidently Oghamic. AnotherreadsOlni mucoi cunuu.(A)

82 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSWATEKFOBD.The third pillar bears the legend]NAMAQILUGUDECAMUCO[i]MATONI.Na maqi lugudeca muco (i) matoni.145. If na be not like No, per se a proper name, Namatonmight be taken to be the true titulus with the matter endingmucoi interjected. Lugudeca we shall find elsewhere asLugudeccas in the genitive, an evidence either of the unfixedgrammar used by the Ogham writers, or of linguistic changesimplying long lapse of time.() 126. The fourth Kilgrovan pillar offers some featuresgiving rise to a consideration of more distinct interest. Wehave seen that the characters of the supplementary aicme inthe Ogham alphabet stand for the respective vowels in theirdiphthongal combinations, as X for ea, ei, &c. If they hadnot this wider capacity for sound-expression, the object ofir\adding them to the original alphabet would not be intelligible,because the separate characters are there already. So in thecase of the group representing st, these letters already existoutside it, and itmay fairly be said the group would besuperfluous if it did not afford some additional facility as byexpressing not only st but s in all its consonantal, as Xexpresses e in its vocalic, combinations, as st, sc, sg,&c. Thelegend runsLeft NISlGN rTTMAQE?0EightBINisignu maq estobi.There does not appear any name Estob, but if the z group, asit is called, have the force of sc or then sg, Maq esgobi, filmsepiscopi, has a literary meaning and an historic significance,which in the general dearth of tangible matter must be highlyacceptable.127. We are here near Dungarvan, formerly the place ofresidence of Mr. William Williams, now deceased. He wasan eager inquirer after Ogham remains, and has left copies,made by himself, of several such inscriptions on monumentsno longer forthcoming; but I refrain from using or commentingon copies not capable of verification. Mr. Williamswas the discoverer of the Oghams in the cave of Drumlohan,

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 83and of many other examples, includingan inscribed stone WATERPOBD.built into the wall of the old church of Kilrush, a mile westof Dungarvan ;I have not seen it, but give Mr. Williams'sreading, as corrected by Mr. Brash (Og. Mon., 271). Thedigits are engraved on artificial stem-lines incised on thesurface, not, as usual, on the arrises.Left lineRightForgere,acmaglumusor,which Mr. Brash reads as the monument of Forgereac son ofLumusor. If so, mag should be deemed equivalent to maqand maqi. The sequence Maglu, however, may suggestdoubts as to the right segregation of mag.128. From Dungarvan, the high road leads to Youghall, Ardmorcwith a detour to Ardmore, intermediate on the sea-coast.w. c.Ardmore is a place of high ecclesiastical antiquity, formerlythe see of a bishop, retaining what must be regarded as themost complete of the numerous ecclesiastical Round Towers Round Tower.in Ireland. In the cathedral churchyard, near the tower,stands an ancient oratory called Leaba Deglain, or the Bed of Saint Dedan'sDeclan, the reputed first bishop. It is one of the stone bed'oratories of the Island MacDara type, made known to architecturalantiquaries by Petrie, and reproduces the outlines ofsome of the sepulchral cellae of the Burgundian Museum. Inits eastern wall there was formerly built in as part of themasonry a stone now preserved within the unroofed walls ofthe cathedral, Ogham-inscribed on three of its angles. One (A)arris bears a legend singularly like that at old IslandCAQOMAGECAFEQIO^AnotherCaqomageca feqi of.LUGUDECCASMAQILugudeccas Maqi.And the third, which bears a seemingly Latin aspect, as Iread itOEDOLATIBIGAI SGOBI&c.Dolati bigoesgobi.

84 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONS.WATERFORD.Pedigree ofSt. itedan.Lixgrenan orGrange. '129. Another Ogham inscription preserved at Ardmorereads amadu, insipiens,and a third, in the collection of theKoyal Irish Academy, is a fragment readingANACIMAQI[Anaci MaqiLugdec and Anac are both names in Declan's pedigree. He wasof the southern Desi, originally a Meath tribe. His pedigreeis traced to that Felemy Rechtmar, whose mother Queen Bani'stomb lately engaged our notice. Having regard to the numberof descents in it, there is some difficulty in putting Declan farenough back to be even a contemporary of St. Patrick, butthere exists a great body of tradition to the effect that notonly did he precede Patrick in his apostleship, but that onPatrick's approach to the south, he with Kieran and Ibar, twoother pre-Patrician bishops, contested the authority of thenew comer, and effected a compromise based on the recognitionof Declan's ecclesiastical supremacy in his own diocese.Dr. Todd has learnedly shown the incompatibility of thesestatements with the annalistic chronology; but the Lifeof Declan, which Colgan regarded as of the eighth century,could hardly have been written if, during the Patrician orPalladian period, there had not been a Christian organisationin Munster, whether represented by Declan or not, sufficientlystrong to assert a local independence, which might not unnaturallycause it to be afterwards discountenanced, whenthe new mission had sufficiently established itself.130. North from Ardmore, on the main road from Dungarvanto Youghall, about five miles from the latter place,the old cemetery of Grange or Lisgrenan, there has latelybeen recovered a buried monument, inscribed on two arrises.I have not seen it, and take the text from the Rev. E. Barry'sletter to Mr. Atkinson (Brash, 414)atLeft arrisansaloti.Right d magi mucoi.The ansaloti ispreceded by an initial mark, >-, which seemsto make the mucoi of the right arris necessarily terminal.

y Mr. Brash Collabot muco I (imperfect).CHAPTER V.Monument at Kiltera Old Church of Seskinan Ogham-inscribed stones SalterBridge, Glenawillen, Knockboy, Burntfort, Greenhill, Bweeng, MonataggartAllusions to Ogham cited by the Bishop of Limerick from the BrehonLaws Ogham-inscribed stone, Kilcullen Imposing megalithic monument atBarrachauran Aghabulloge St. Olan's : pillar stone : identification of St. Olanwith the " institutor " of St. Finbarr, of Cork; who died A.D. 621 Oghams atKnockrour, Liads, Glounaglogh, Tulligmore, Ballyhank, Koovesmore, Garranes,Cooldorrihy, Knockouran Ogham-inscribed pillar-stone selected by Mr. Windelefor his own monument Shanacloon, Coomliath, Kilcaskan, Ballycrovane,Cappagh, Lomanagh, Gortnacaree ; pillar stone now at Adare Manor Derrygurrane,Dromkeare, Killogrone now transferred to; Cahirciveen, Killeenadreena" " Galeotas inscribed stone amoug the mountains near Lough Carra Killeenat Kilcolaght Ogham stone at Kilgobinet Whitefield Cave at DuuloeRuined church of Kilbonane ;monument removed to Adare Manor Rath caveTiunahally Pillar stones Ardywanig Eath-cave at Keel :pillar removed toCorkaboy.131. AT Youghall we come on the embouchure of the River WATKRFORD.Blackwater, ascending which to Yillierstown, a station on the Kilter %$left bank, we reach, about a mile south of that point, the /. c.Killeen of Kiltera, in the parish of Aglish and townland ofDromore. One of a group of stones here, seemingly theremains of a cist or sepulchral cell, bears the inscription readThe reading is supported by another example of the samename from Laharan, in the County of Kerry.132. We are here on the opposite side of the Commeragh or SesidnanMonavoullagh mountains, from that by which we entered 13Waterford county ; and, if we proceed in their direction tothe north-east, enter the parish of Seskinan. The old parishchurch, now dismantled, stands in a rough but fertile tract ofcountry, sloping westward from Monavoullagh. To provideits window sills and lintels, a neighbouring cemeteryappears to have been ransacked of its headstones. Mr.

86 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSBrash has found this site in the remains of a Killeen partlyincluded within the bounds of the present graveyard. Asmight be expected, several of these sills and lintels areOgham-inscribed. In very few instances, however, can thewhole of the legend be seen. One remarkable name, Sartigurn,appears on the lintel of the lower window of the west gable,on others. TheCafic, Corb, and Cir maqi muc (oi) are legiblechurch cannot be older than the fifteenth century a singularevidence of the continuing disposition to regard the Killeenas a lawful quarry.39. 133. Returning westward by Cappoquin at the point wherethe Blackwater, which up to this part of its course runs fromwest to east along the base of the Knockmeldown andGaltee Mountains, takes its southern direction to the sea atYoughall, we meet with two new names on a broken OghamSofter Bridge pillar preserved in the demesne of Salter Bridge. The legendCORK/ creadsOmongadias maqi mad bite,or mad biti. The fracture leaves it doubtful if the first bemongadias, but the probability is that the two digits makingthe o belong to some longer antecedent group. Mongad,however, appears to be son of Madbit, or son of a son of Bitor Jbit.134. Ascending the valley of the Blackwater to Lismore,formerly a great ecclesiastical school of the Patrician establishment,we find many remains of old Hiberno - Romaninscriptions, but, as in other like cases already noted, nothing?o.Oghamic ; and the same observation will apply to Cloyne, theecclesiastical capital of the rich tract between Youghall andCork, south of the Blackwater. Nearly central in this tract,however, and thence reaching westwards, begins an almostcontinuous succession of Ogham sites and monuments extendning to Kerry and the Atlantic. At Glenawillen, near Midleton,in the parish of Templenacarriga, in an erased rath-cave werefound two stones, now in the Royal Cork Institution, one ofwhich (A) bears the name Colomagni "Colman" with someundeciphered additions COLOMAG NiFeroMaGi

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 87Feromag, the nearest reduction to which I can bring the CORK.remains of the second name, may be Feramag, Fermoy, orFermac, a man's name in Oghamic disguise; but so manyletters must be guessed at, that I can only affirm its initial tobe F, and its terminal letter to be G followed by vowelnotches. And the other, as I believe, is the same, of whichthe cast (B) shows the name Scottolini.135. North-west from Templenacarriga we enter the largeand for the most part upland parish of Dunbulloge. In thatportion which slopes down to the valley of the Lee atBealaghamire, in the townland of Knockboy, once stood avery remarkable assemblage of stone monuments and primitiveconstructions. A square rath enclosed a cairn, twocaves, at one side, four great pillar-stones, two of them inscribed;and at the opposite side two other smaller pillars,one inscribed. A third cave existed outside the squareenclosure. On visiting the place in 1868, Mr. Brash "wasdismayed to find that the great monument had been almostobliterated by the tenant." One pillar, too massive for easydemolition, remained. It bears inscriptions on two angles.One of these Mr. Brash readsArtagnLAt Gormlee, in the northern part of the parish, are two otherpillar-stones, Ogham-inscribed, but too much worn by weatherand the rubbing of cattle, for transliteration.136. In the direction of Mallow, the adjoining parish of BumifortMourne Abbey contributes two examples. The first, found f^cin a rath-cave in the townland of Burntfort, was, many yearsago, deposited in the Royal Cork Institution. It has sincedisappeared, appropriated, it is supposed, by the masonsemployed in building the Cork Athenseum (Brash, Og. Mon.,118, n.),but was, about 1849, the subject of much discussionin which all parties were agreed respecting the charactersSagittari.Sagittarius is a known Latinization of proper names signifyingbowman or archer. Fearbogha, the Irish name, havingthe same meaning, will probably be regarded as concealedunder this classical disguise.f*

88 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSCORK.Green hillBweeng41I.e.137. The other monument stands at Greenhill. It is a finepillar, 8 ft. high. The initial characters have been founddifficult to decipher (Brash, Og. Mon., 137). By the aid of acast of this part of the inscription kindly made for me by theRev. Thomas Olden, Ballyclough, I am satisfied that theinitial characters are *Tr, and see no reason to doubt that theentire legend readsTrenu or Treni magi mucoi qritti.138. Kilshannig parish, also lying north of Donoughmore,supplies one example. It isapparently a low gravestoneclose to the Roman Catholic church of Bweeng. It is noticeablefor its vowels, formed by stem-crossing digits,and for itsLatin termination. Mr. Brash reads it (Og. Mon., 144)Mongus.The n and g are distinct characters, whence itmight beinferred that examples in the more compendious form'are of more recent times.'''138a. At the Royal Cork Institution there is a considerablecollection of Ogham-inscribed stones, the description of allsave one of which will be found in connection with theirplaces of origin. The one of uncertain origin, but no doubtnearly local, is much abraded and very rough and difficult ofdecipherment.I make outSCOTTALiaNiSCOTToL * # *Mon atarjg art01w. I139. South from Kilshannig, lies the large upland parishof Donoughmore. It occupies the watershed dividing thevalleys of the Blackwater and the Lee, its tributary to theformer being the Clyda running northward to Mallow, and tothe latter, the Dripsey running southward to Coachford.The Dripsey, near Brew Bridge, runs below the slopes of ahigh-lying farm called Monataggart. On this farm, severalyears ago, the occupier, in ploughing, found some greatstones under the surface, forming a kind of chamber, orrather pit,which contained black earth and ashes interspersedwith broken pottery. The stones on being removed werefound to bear long and unusually perfect Ogham inscriptions.At first the presence of the ashes and pottery suggested the

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 89idea of sepulchral cremation ;but these objects might also CORK.indicate a boundary mark. The Roman Agrimensores werenot the only functionaries who marked boundaries of land byMartin, in his memoir ofthe deposit of ashes and potsherds.the Western Islands, has noticed the practice in severalplaces where Roman customs could hardly be supposed tohave penetrated. The object was, no doubt, to leave somethingindestructible as a memorial, and the practice isprobablyold European rather than Roman. Here, then, if anywhere,we might look for evidences confirmatory of the allusions tothe use of Ogham in the Brehon Laws. The Bishop ofLimerick has lately collected them. " How many ever- Allusions toburning candles are there by which perpetual ownership of *^" aland is secured ? Memorials of the Historians, of Ancient collected byWritings, in Ancient Mounds." " The joint Memorial of twoor itTerritories, i.e., The Ogam in the Gallan (pillar-stone),might be the evidence of two neighbours." Again, " Todecide by the recital of a rock, i.e. that the name of9the manwho bought [the land] be in the bond of Ogam, i.e. 9that theOgam of the purchase be in the flagof a mound." Nothing,indeed, indicating purchase or territorial designation has asyet been found on any of the buried Ogham-inscribed stoneshitherto offered to notice ;but if the ashes deposited inthis pit really indicate a boundary mark, one could hardlylook on the names recorded on the stones contained in it asother than those of proprietors taking this method of perpetuatingthe evidence of .their titles. The forms of theinscriptions, however, do not encourage this idea. Three ofthem are now in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy.One of these (A) is in the simplest "A son of B " formDalagni maqi dali.140. The other two have more of the religious aspect. TheCamp inscription affords the key to one. It must be read from 72.left to right inversely, giving each character the value of itsopposite in the Ogham scale(A)Feqreq moqoi glunlegget.that is, the stone of " Fiachra, son (or of the sons) of Glunlegget."Observe the departure from the hitherto constant(B)

90 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSCORK. form of Maqi, and note the approach to something like predicationin the apparent meaning of " Glunlegget, the Kneeler."Possibly also I might not misinterpret what may be in someof my readers' minds, if I queried whether this means the Sonof the Kneeler, or the Kneeler or Penitent of the Son. It willdoubtless have been observed that, up to the present, therehas been no direct mention in any of these legends, howeverof the name ofChristian and religious in their general aspect,our Lord ;and that Maqi, in some of its numerous contexts,can hardly be referred on any intelligible principles to theperson commemorated.(en 141. The third monument from Monataggart now in theAcademy is in the " qui fuit " form, and savours of the asceticfashion of seK-humiliation. It reads in the usual way44. Broenienas poi netattrenalugos.It also seems to predicate of Broenienas that he was " neta," ifthat be a separate vocable, and whatever meaning it mayhave, of some one called Trenloc champion of Tenloc, forinstance, or, if "neta" be part of a longer name, thatBroenienas (before taking that name in religion) had beenNetatrenloc. These two latter monuments aresecularly,fine pillar-stonesof about 8 ft. in length, and obviouslyintended to be set up on end.142. A fourth inscribed pillar remains at Monataggart builtinto the fence of the road leading into the farmyard. It is notinscribed on the arris, neither has itany actual stem-line, butdepends for its interpretation on the adjustment of its digitsto an imaginaryline. It is the most delicately-incised of all103. the examples so far observed. Some of the digits are evenshorter than the minuscules of Killeen-Cormac, and all arecut with extreme fineness.C) FERGOSOMACI^OM^NACCA.The dimensions of the pit are stated to have been about5 ft.long, 3 ft. broad, and 3 ft.deep. It is now filled up,and the site restored to agriculture. Whence the stonescame from, or why deposited there, are questions hard toanswer. There is a disused burial-ground on the opposite

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 91bank of the Dripsey a little higher up, at Kilcullen, where CORK.one pillar-stone, stated to bear the legend Lugu decces maqi Kilcullenott, is still standing. I saw it in an unfavourable light,whichM rmay account for my being unable either to verify or correctthe reading but the ;spot is evidently one of the Killeen classso often noticed and to be noticed. To drag the Monataggartpillars across the deep valley and bed of the river, would havebeen a very difficult operation. The most reasonable solutionwould, perhaps, be that the place as its name, "Priests'Marsh," imports had possessed some kind of Christian cellbefore its conversion to farming purposes, and that the stonesof its cemetery had been utilised for the construction of thisKist-vaen, which need not necessarily be supposed to havebeen either agrimensorial or sepulchral in its character, or ofany great antiquity.143, Westward of Kilcullen, the country becomes morebare and lonely, until, at a place called Barrachauran, we Barrachanranfind ourselves in presence of very imposing megalithic mixed 4 50^' rwith smaller stone remains. Many great stones have beenbroken up, some lie prostrate, and some are still standing.One group of these, three in number, makes a very imposing imposingand even solemn feature in the wide green upland. Thehighest, which I judge to be about 14 ft. above the ground,bears the remains of a much-effaced Ogham on one of itsangles, now almost obliterated by the rubbing of cattle. Itis undoubtedly an Ogham of the regular digit and notchkind, but of what purportit is impossible now to say. Ifsepulchral, one would hesitate to supposeit Christian. If aterritorial landmark, it might be expected to stand alone.The impression produced by the view of the placeis that ithas been a cemetery in which, whether Pagan or Christian inits origin, the megalith has been associated with the humblergrave-stone. A neighbouring rath-cave has supplied one ofthese smaller memorials, now in the Koyal Cork InstitutionCARRTTACCGAQIM^cCAGMa.Carrtaccgaqi Muc [agma T\an example of the difficulty of distinguishing the gm fromm. But I take it to be as first given, and equivalent to theBritish caractac.

92 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSCORK. 144. To the west of Donoughmore we enter the parishof Aghabulloge. It is still the same upland country,sloping upward to the north towards the watershedbetween the valleys of the Blackwater and Lee, and tothe west towards the Boggra Mountains. About the middleSt. OlarfsOf the parish is the church of St. Olan. In the churchyard,i, i. set up among modern graves, stands what isregardedas St. Olan's - pillar stone, although the legend which itbears does not commemorate him by that name. It is anobject of great veneration, and ever since it was first noticedhas been crowned with a separate cap-stone. The old capstonehas disappeared, and a modern one has been recentlysubstituted. The belief regarding it is, that to whateverdistance itmay be removed it will be found next day inold place. The same belief exists respectingitsseveral othersupposed sacred stones in Ireland. It is a very widespreadsuperstition, and not without example among the Greeks.The pillaris inscribed nearly from end to end, and has to beraised to get at the beginning of the legend. This comprisestwo of the X formed characters, and begins with the lettersanm already noticed as an initial formula. No real difficultyexists in any of the following characters, save in one groupoftwo digits which, with certain vowel notches, precede thesecond X. The group as it presents itself on the worn surfacewould read bm, which might be the result of the upper halfof one digit of an original g having disappeared throughabrasion or other accident. In the b combination it will notassimilate with what goes either before or after in anyvocalisable combination. But if we be content to assumehah of the first digitthat the group is a g of which the upperhas been lost, and to suppose the space following to beoccupied with vowel notches equivalent to its length, makinga probable u, then the reading becomes intelligible andrelevantP e G a PANMCORREAMAQFUIDDal.B.MuEATT&c.&c.Anm, Corpimaq fuidd (e)g(u)ptt.The digits forming the terminal t have a cross-bar, intimating40, no. a contraction. We have had a suspicion of the employment of

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 93Latin in fed at Drumloghan. We are already familiar with CORK.poi as the equivalent of qui fuit. Fuit, in old Irish spellingwould be fuid, as, under " delg, a pin," in Cormac's Glossary" deleg, ex quo legid (a ligat) duas partes togas."Theinscription then would be read as if qui fuit followed the nameCormac, here shown in its inflated form of Corpimaq, " whowas" whatever the last word ot the legend predicates ofhim. The last word seems to completethe sentence notdoubtfully, " Who was the Egyptian." But why expect to Litany offind Egyptians in Ireland ? The answer must again be fijjjjiidrawn from the Litany of ^Engus, where, amongst other visi- monks in Ire.tants, he enumerates " the seven a" "Egyptian monks who lie inDisert Ulad." I do not suppose that St. Olan's is Disert Ulad ;but, amid such a concourse of foreigners, it will not surpriseus if we find an ecclesiastic of the Egyptian rule, even herein Aghabulloge in Cork, as we already had some ground forrecognising the record of an Italian one among the roundedcope-stones of Ballintaggart in Kerry. But that an Egyptian, 44.or a monk of the Egyptian rule should be called Cormac, will,no doubt, appear strange. There were, however, so manynames of origin, of endearment, of personal traits, of personalincidents, as well as names in religion in use among theseearly Irish monks and clerics, that Corpimaq as a nomenadoptivum need cause no sense of incongruity. Olan, however,is the name which has traditionally clung to the patronof Aghabulloge, whether in connection with his pillar-stone,his church, or his holy well.And so far everything points tothe Corpmac of the inscription as an alias of this holyperson.Could we distinctly identify him, we might have a reasonableassurance of standing on firmer ground than any wehave yet felt under us. And this identification has, I think,reallybeen demonstrated. The Book of Leinster recordsEolang as venerated at Aghabulloge. Under the name ofEvolengus the Bishop of Limerick finds him commemoratedas " institutor," which may mean " tutor " or " initiator," of St.Finbarr, of Cork ;and further, that he had the alias nameof MacCorbius. In the Irish life of St. Finbarr his baptiseris a bishop called Mac Cuirb. Finbarr died A.D. 621. Takenaltogether, the identification seems complete, and puts the

94 OGHzVM INSCRIPTIONSCORK. monument of Corpmac back to some time in the latter part ofthe sixth century. If, then, prior to A.D. 600, Ogham writinghad passed into itssecondary stage, time for an antecedentcourse of development should be found, for which the intermediateperiod from Palladius might hardly seem sufficient.St. Olan's well 145. Olan's or Evolengus's holy well, stands eastward at alittle distance from thei icemetery. It is stone-domed, andovershadowed by a venerable tree. A great slab, whichKnockrour60I. I.formerly served as a foot bridge over a stream at the oppositeside of the church, has been set up beside the well. It bearsthe rudely-cut Ogham inscription97. No magi dego.The tree, the stone vault, the trickling stream, and the standingstone make an agreeable feature in the bare surroundingcountry.146. The neighbourhood has formerly been full of raths,rath-caves, and those deserted burying grounds, of which somuch has already been said. Of the numerous inscriptionssupplied by this lettered moorland, one is from a Killeen inthe townland of Knockrour, now in the possession of ColonelLane Fox. It has been readMUDDOSSAM(A)QQ^T ;Muddossa maqqa at ;but the singularity of the names suggests, as preferable, thereverse inverted reading, also countenanced by the fact thatthe stone is fractured at the terminal digits.]s onn mac collum.Liads60I.e.147, From the neighbouring lands of Deelish, in a similarburying-place called Liads, another example has been transferredto the Royal Cork Institution, inscribed on twoanglesLeft arrisOTMAQIMAQIRITE.ot maqi maqi rite.RightJCOICORIBIRI.coi coribiri.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 95The readingis not continuous. Each arris is read upward. CORK.Coi may be portion of mucoi, or itmay have a separate meaning.Coribiri is another example of the use of the unionvowel in inflating such proper names as Corbri.148. In the northern part of the parish where it slopes upto the Machera mountain, in the townland of Glounaglogh,formerly stood a circle of pillar-stones. One of these isinscribed. It is now in the Royal Cork Institution. Theinscription is broken off at top.uGUNAGVSSOSEMA[IThe name, here and elsewhere, seems an inflated form ofCongus, Cungus. Whether the uma is a separate vocable orpart of some other combination, cannot be determined. Thema, perhaps, is part of a lost maqi, in which case itmight bethought that u is a qualifying particle, used as ot and o inother instances.There are many remaining examples from this fruitful field,but they are fragmentary and uncertain.149. Between Aghabulloge and the Lee intervenes theparish of Magourney. A rude pillar inscribed on two naturalridges of one face from Tulligmore in this parish is also at theCork Institution. Mr. Brash (Og. Mon., 29) reads itMaqi Laseg.Ot Maqi He.Whether ot be a proper name or a qualifying adjunct of Maqi,may be questionable. I have not a cast of this legend, andspeak with reserve. I could not determine the first name,and for He my drawing, possibly erroneous, has De.150. Let us now pass from the table-land dividing thewaters of the Blackwater and Lee, and crossing the Leesouthward, enter on the corresponding upland forming thewatershed between the Lee and the Bandon. In this extensivetract are four rath-caves, in the construction ofwhich Ogham-inscribed monuments have been employed.Killeens and Cealuraghs adjoin them all, and, no doubt,have supplied the stones. The first is situate in theparish of Kilnaglory, six miles east from Cork City. Its

96 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSCOBK. various chambers extend through a length of 52 ft., and itHaigh.has yielded six Ogham examples. One of them was pre-^sented to the Royal Irish Academy the remaining five were;acquired by the late Mr. Windele ; but, since his death, theentire collection has been reunited in the Academy's LapidaryMuseum. Two other monuments of the same class, ofuncertain history, were among the Windele collection, andhave also been acquired by the Academy. All, save the first,are extremely rude. None of them bears any symbol ofChristianity, though the legends are characteristic of asceticfashion, olc and " " corb, bad," wicked," entering into four ofthe names. The Ballyhank group read respectivelySACATTINIULCCAGNICoRBAGNI[COJCOBotaNIGG NCoRBA;?iST Q\ &c.In this last, stem-crossing digits are exceptionally used forvowels.151. The sixth example yields the more predicative legendMaqi elliaci o Maqi Ni,the face of thepillar, which is of extraordinary coarseness and ruggedness.I am unable to say what the o before maqi may mean. Thecharacters are capable of being read o maniqi, being partly on97. with another line, now illegible, running up'the head and partly carved down the arris of the stone.152. The other of uncertain origin cannot be said to bearany inscription, but is covered with lines and digits sculpturedpossibly in imitation of Oghams or Runes, or, it may be, in aquasi Ogham still unexplained. There is a great abundanceof such pseudo Oghams in the south of Ireland, but it wouldnot be possible here to notice them indetail.153. The Ballyhank monument, however, of most interest,is the one mentioned to have been first acquired by theAcademy. It is a small, smooth slab, which has been en-His graved with care and delicacy, and preserves a remarkable*name > Forrtigurn. It had quite a fascination for the mindof the late Rev.Daniel Haigh, who conceived this to be the

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 1)7name of the British king Vortigern, the inviter of the Saxons. CORK.Vortigern was an ally of the Irish Scots. After the loss ofhis kingdom and the denunciations of Saint German, he disappearedsome say burnt by fire from heaven ; others,swallowed up by the earth ; others, in exile. His son Pascentcontinued the struggle, and resorted for aid to Ireland,whence he returned with the Irish Gillamorus as his ally.Ireland was, at that time, the ordinary place of refuge fordethroned British princes and unsuccessful British insurgents.Pascent was also accompanied by Eopa or Eobba,who served him by carrying off his competitor by poison.Digits which, among other readings, might yield thename hioba, are carved in very small minuscular Oghamon the opposite arris of the stone. It is a remarkable name, rortigcm,if Mr. Haisrh's Xinff funique, I believe, in Ogham records, and,i- i ,1 . T , . ,cn Britain, fatherreading be the true one, gives a good countenance to his belief of Saint'that it was this Eobba who caused the monument to be en- Faustus -graved. But to whose memory engraved, is the difficulty.Vortigern had a daughter, the mother, by his own incest, ofSaint Faustus; and they perished or disappeared together.The word which introduces the patronymicis not maqi, butmoqi, which Mr. Haigh takes to mean " daughter." Thename of Vortigern's daughter has never been divulged inhistory, so that its non-appearance here need not excitesurprise. But there is the appearance of some suppression orobscuration of some name going before moqi. There are fiveunderline digits preceded by the vowel a.Normally theywould read n, but the central one is distinguished from thepairs flanking it by being very delicately, while they arestrongly, cut. Reading up to this digit we would have alb,and, resiling thence and commencing anew as if all werenormal, we would complete Allan, which at one time Ithought might be the meaning. But I now rather imaginethe slender line to be what in Runic writing is called an" elegance" or caprice of the engraver, and that the legendshould be readANMOQIFORaRTIGUllN.an moqi Forrtigurn.An map, in Welsh, intimates bastardy, or something worse,

98 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSCORK.Epoch ofVortigem*His sonRoovexmore72I. I.and the use of its equivalent here is quite consistent with Mr.Haigh's theory. Vortigern's epoch has generally been fixedin relation to that of St. Germanus of Auxerre, which wouldput the closing events of his reign in the post-Palladianperiod. But there is a difficulty in bringing him down toso late a date. He had been son-in-law of Maximus, whodied A.D. 389, and the wild, mystical, and romantic incidentsof his story are better suited to a struggle with someBritish ecclesiastic than with the great bishop of Auxerre,whose biographer and immediate successor, Constans, doesnot so much as mention Vortigern's name. If his son Pascentprocured the aid of an Irish king whose name sounds inChristianity, he could hardly have been sought for in theeastern or northern parts of the island : but if there werethen a Christian community in Munster, the British narrativein this respect would be consistent. In any case, the Ballyhank" Fortigern " stone will probably be considered one ofthe most interesting and possibly most precious monumentsof the early existence of an Irish and British connection.154. Eight miles further we stwardwe reach Rooer's Bridgeon the Lee, adjoining which, in the townland of Roovesmore,parish of Eglish, there existed some years ago a cave in theremains of a rath, which the farmer, desiring to utilise theland, has since erased. The cave contained three Oghaminscribedstones of the same general character as those atBallyhank and Drumloghan. They are now deposited in theBritish Museum, and have been described with remarkableaccuracy, both in the particulars of their deposit and of thelegends inscribed on them, by Colonel Lane Fox. They areallengraved on both arrises.One readsMaqi falamni.Maqi Ercias.The one name being new in its formation mn, where hithertowe have been accustomed to gn the other an ; echo, in nameand formation, of the Dunmore Head example.155, The second legend is marked by several peculiarities.Digits crossing the line are employed for vowels; in some

*IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 99places large and wide apart, in others very small and closely COUK.spaced. Colonel Lane Fox's drawing readstabira mocoi sugfedacu.The latter name, if read inversely to the opposite characters,would be usale a known name in archaic pedigrees, whereit is written usalec (Pedigree of Brendan). I know of noname in old Irish literature beginning with Sug, save oneSiugmall which occurs in the Archaic pedigrees of the Bookof Invasions. The initial Ta of the first name is not on mycast, which possibly arises from oversight in not placingit low enough on the stone ;and the only points on which Iexpress a doubt are, whether the name has a terminal a, andwhether an a do not precede the imperfect terminal Sog, orwhatever letter the terminal digits may be part of. In anycase the feminine-looking bira tends to confirm Mr. Haigh'stheory of the meaning of mocoi.156. The third Roovesmore stone is a shapely pillar 7 ft.high, with what would be a continuous inscription but for afracture at top, in which, however, I believe one vowel pointonly has been lostanaflamattias muco (i) eluri aft a (x) eras ;or, if the reader shift his position on coming to the secondarris39.anaflamattias muco (i) eduriati a (x) erac. 8.The flanking vowels make itimpossible that (X) hereshould have the power of ea, and neither aperas nor aperacseems to offer anything normal. The Bishop of Limerick haslately suggested for X the third power of dh, which no oneacquainted with the varying forces given to Runic letters willconsider unprecedented. If extended to th, itmight help usto more likely-looking results both in this and other exampleswhich remain to be noticed.157. Southward from Roovesmore, in the parish of Templemartin,six miles northward from Bandon, at Garranes, Mr.Brash notices the remarkable legendC(a)ssitt(a)s inaqi mucoi Calliti.

100 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSCORKAghaiiskeyu rThe stone bearing it appears to have come from a rath-cave,and in the near neighbourhoodis a Killeen (Og. Mon., 158).158. At about an equal distance south-west from Bandon,at Aghaliskey, in the parish of Kilmaloda, another rath-cave,originally explored by Mr. Windele, is described by Mr. Brash.He reads on the fourth roofing lintel from the entrance thelegendGirognq,where analogy would lead us to expect i instead of q : butMr. Brash states his impression that the inscription was originallylonger (Og. Mon., 146).159. On the seventh lintel from the entrance, on two raisedridges of the under face, he readsQunagusos Maqi mucoi F ,remarking that the stone has been built in without regard tothe course of reading, which, as the stone lies, seems to befrom right to left (ib. 146).160. These legends on the roofing stones were known tothe original explorers. Mr. Brash discovered another on asupporting pillar." The upright pillaris 4 ft. 3 in. in length, and 12 in.by 6 in. atthe centre, and of somewhat lesser dimensions at the top and bottom.To my extreme delight I found it to bear a perfect inscription cut withthe greatest accuracy and care, and looking as fresh as if engravedyesterday. The letter-scores are the smallest I have yet seen, beingshort, and finely but deeply cut. They appear not to have beenpunched, but formed by rubbing with a sharp tool and waterIts (the stone's) position in the cave, with the inscribed angle turned tothe wall, preserved it from injury through the long round of centuries itmust have lain here concealed. The inscription is as follows :Coi bagni maqi mucoi.It commences 2 ft. 3 in. from the bottom, and occupies but 1 ft. 9 in.of the angle." (Og. Mon., 147.)From these statements we should regard the coi as a distinctvocable and not as the termination of a mutilated mucoi;unless, indeed, the five digits of the i be stem-crossing= r,which would give the familiar Corbagni. As regards the

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 101fully-expressed mucoi, if this be the only inscription on the CORK.pillar, it must certainly be taken as an instance of mucoiterminal, with such inferences respecting its grammaticalfollow from that consideration.relation to Magi as may161. Another rath-cave, which had long been closed, atCooldorrihy, in the parish of Kilmichael, about midway cooidorrihybetween Bandon and Macroom, was reopened, in 1870, forMr. Brash. He found the supporting pillar of one of theroofing lintels inscribed with a legend, which he readsThe Ea is represented by X ;Feqoanai magi Eaqod.the terminal character questionable(Og. Hon., 160).162. In the same parish, on the lands of Knockouran, or Mount MusicMount Music, formerly stood the pillar selected by Mr. 8M ^Windele for his own monument, and now, I believe, erected Oghaminthe garden of his former residence at Blairs Hill, Cork. Itbears a deeply-incised Maltese cross with the legendselected by Mr.Windele forThe alternative readings are caused, first, by a doubt whetherthe groups following annaca are of four or five digits each ;downward of the fivenext, by faint but visible protractionsoutline digits forming prima facie the Q of Magi ; and, lastly,by the ambiguous relation of the final group to the Hue ofarris, some of its digits distinctly, and others not at allappearing to cross the angle; but to my eye forming Rrather than N. If the legend be taken as in the ordinaryformula of " A son of B," it would read, disregarding theprotractionsAnnaca imagi Aillitt(d)n.?1TlThe last vocable being a proper name. But if it be, as Isuppose it is, Aillittr, a " pilgrim," there arises a strong presumptionthat a double reading of magiis intendedAnnacassi magiMarl aillittr.163. About twelve miles westward from Macroom, in theparish of Ballyvourney, at Shanacloon, is a pillar bearing a

102 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSlegend, read by Mr. * * Bir Maqi.COKK.Brash, omitting initial characters imperfect.in length.(Og. Mon., 153.)164t In the mountainous country between BallyvourneyCoomliah and Bantry, at Coomliah East, in the parish of Kilmocamogue,JOGii. r.stands an inscribed pillar now mutilated. Its legend wastranscribed by Mr. Windele while it was still entire. Itappears by this copy (Og. Mon.) to have terminated with thesyllable grac.The preceding characters are not legible.165. South of Bantry, that portion of the peninsula separatingBantry Bay from the estuary of Kenmare, containstwo examples. The first stands near Inchintaglin Bridge onthe north side of the Adrigoole river, beside the old church ofKilcaskan Kilcaskan. Mr. Brash reads the principal name Luguqrit,103r.and makes the whole legend, which is much defaced,/.Luguqrit magi qritti.166. The other exampleis found on the western shore ofBallycrovane the peninsula, on the margin of the Kenmare river at Ballycrovane,in the parish of Kilcashmore. We have passed in10-2review many great Ogham-inscribed pillar-stones, but this isby much the grandest example of such a monument inObelisk 25 ft. Ireland. It is really a fine obelisk, 25 ft. in total length, andof graceful proportions, although, like all monuments of itsclass, untouched by the stonecutter. I have not seen it,but take its dimensions from Mr. Brash, and what I say of itssite and appearance, from a characteristic drawing by Mr.Windele. Its inscription, from the agreement of almost allthe transcripts, is, I have no doubt, as given by Mr. Brash inthe sequenceMaqideceddasafitoranias.If read decedda, the name of the person commemorated wouldbe Safitoran (like Saffigeg)if read; deceddas, it would be afi=grandson of Toran. In either case, Decedda should be taken asa proper name ;and it seems a likely Oghamic form of Deagad,from whom a widespread family of the Hy-Deagaid, inhabitingthis region, descended. We have had many examples of

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 103it in conjunction with Maqi in widely-separateddistricts of KEBBY.Ireland, and two others elsewhere have still to be mentionedboth in Roman characters, though the monuments are Celtic,one in Anglesea, hie jacet Maccudeceti ;and one in Devon,Sarini filii Maccodecheti. I think we may be quite assuredthat the Clan Deagaid had its original seats in Munster, andthat if itspread to Anglesea and Devon, and commemorateditself monumentally there as well as in Kildare and Kerry,the Irish claim to a colony in Britain capable of foundinga school of Ogham writing would be very cogentlyevidenced. But it seems highly improbable that an individualproper name should be so widely diffused and we cannot;forget that in the first example we had of the same formula,it was accompanied by the Christian cross. These considerationsraise a question not to be lightly dismissed :Whether,in this as in other cases, maqi means "son" in ordinarypedigree, or " the " Son in theology, the formula in the latterview designating some office or relation to our Lord ? If thatwere so, the megalithic character of other monuments wouldpresent no objection to their having been raised in Christiantimes.167. Ascending the estuary to Kenmare, there is found ata place called Cappagh, in the townland of Dromatouk, a DromatoukKilleen or disused burial-place marked by several standingstones, one of which is inscribed. Mr. Brash reads itanm otunilocid maqi Alott.The anm is easily separable, as are the maqi and alott, thelast being an archaic name of frequentoccurrence in thisregion. As to otunilocid^ whether it be one proper name ordivisible, Mr. Brash expresses no opinion (Og. Mon., 221).168. Eastward from Kenmare, in the parish of Kilgarvan, Lomanaghat Lomanagh, the name Ottin, apparently the first member ofthe vocables last mentioned, is read by Mr. Brash on a finein this connectionpillar-stoneOttinn maqi Fecm.169. Half a mile south from Lomanagh, in a Killeen surroundedby a stone circle, at Gortmacaree, formerly stood apillar, now at Adare Manor, which Mr. Brash readsNoar or Nur maqi Farudran.b4

104 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONS92u.l.170. Retracing the line of the Kenmare estuary, on thenorthern side, in Templenqe parish, an inscribed pillar isfound within a stone circle at Derrygurrane South. Mr.Brash transliterates itAnm Crunan magi Luqisma.The Bishop of Limerick makes itAnm Crunan macu lucuin.(Og. Mon., 194.)(Proc. R. I. A., 1 s. s., 157.)Dromkeare98c.If the former be correct, it might, in its terminal syllable,offer some analogy to the firstlegend at Rath Croghan.171. Proceeding westward, at Dromkeare, in Dromod parish,near Loch Currane, a much-abraded inscription is read doubtfullyTudenn magi menlenn.(Og. Mon., 215.)Killoqrone80LI.172. At Killogrone, parish of Caher, in a Killeen, formerlystood a cross-signed, inscribed pillar, now transferred to thegrounds of the Convent of Christian Brothers at Cahirciveen.The legend exhibits several examples of the employment ofthose siglafrom the Forfeada which stand respectively for oand e in their diphthongal combinations. It has been examinedand read by the Bishop of LimerickAnm Moeleagoemir admaci Feacimean.(Proc. R. I. A., 1 s. s., 157.)Bishop Graves refers to many examples to justify his acceptanceof anm as an abbreviated equivalent of anima, or, it maybe, of oratio pro anima, giving to the legend the meaning ofMaeladhamar misborn son of(a prayer for the soul of)Feacimean (or Feacim) and observes;that the admaci alliesitself with the otmagi of one of the monuments in the RoyalCork Institution already mentioned; intimating, at thesame time, his opinion that it implies something to the discreditof the deceased, for which reason, he suggests, thehas been carved on the end of the stone remoteinscriptionfrom the cross, and so presumably intended to be hidden in

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 105the ground. He also remarks that the pillar stood, at Killo- RESIDUE OFgrone, at the heading of a Kgrave, and that a lower stonemarked the foot with an elaborate cross and a dove engravedupon it in a very peculiar manner. Moeleagoemir appears tobe characteristically Christian, and Feacimean to be a moredignified presentation of the patronymic found at Lomanagh.173. Bishop Graves also appears to have examined theinscribed stone at Killeenadreena, in the Island of Valentia, Killeenadreenawhich Mr. Brash reads as on his authorityLogoqi maqi erenan.174. In the direction -of the Lakes of Killarney, on a siteamong the mountains near Lough Carra, another inscribedstone has lately been discovered. The Bishop of Limerickdescribes it as expressing the single namegaleotas.175. Further east, in the direction of Killorglin, the FinglassRiver, descending from the Reeks, runs under the slope ofa green eminence in the townland of Kilcolaght East, the site KUcoiaghtof another Killeen, now marked by one standing pillar and ^several prostrate fragments of others, all Ogham-inscribed.The standing pillaris inscribed on all its four angles. Onone face (south) it presents the legendQRIGIFIQQQrigifiqq,or, read reversely, nnitigern ;but I take it to be a variety ofthe Cattufiq and Kellufic type. On the opposite angle whatremains exhibits some appearance of that kind of doublereading noticed in connection with the Mount Music example.There seem to be remains ofSIGANGNG e LMARl,but the digits of the n are protracted in fainter lines on theupper edge, as if possibly intended also to yield the name Mari.This, however, may be the effect of weathering, not design.On the north face it shows a legend beginning anmfir. . ..,but the remainder is to me illegible.

106 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSRESIDUE OFKERRY.Another fragment showsR(B)]OCCMAQILONGRlJ[occ maqi logrifn),(C)recalKng the British Locrin.Anotherurg,which may have been a Pictish Urgust, or its cognate Furgas.Another]GGOMAQIGILg[aggo maqi agill,or, perhaps, gill, suggestive of a Christian designation ingilla.And a fifth, more complete, yields an additional exampleof these strange names inyic, already observed on(E)Kilgolrinct65RITTUFFECCMAQiMaF^DDON^SRittuffecc maqi f ddonas.All marks of a surrounding enclosure have disappeared, butthe site is still respected. The scene is touching and impressive;and one asks again and again, Why should the remainsof these Qrigifics and Rittufics be deemed unworthy to minglewith baptised clay117(J.Proceeding in the direction of Whitefield, the seat ofThe Macgillicuddy, one reaches, at a ford and stepping-stoneson the Glasheen Cockmuck stream, descending from theReeks, the poor hamlet and ruined church of Kilgobinet. Inthe " street " of the eastern part of the village is a roundishstone lying flat, bearing in Ogham the inscriptionANNAFEN.In an adjoining meadow to the north is another with a longerlegend, which, owing to an accident to the cast, I cannotanswer for. I failed to find here the pillar stone alleged onthe authority of a sketch by Mr. Windele to bear the seeminglyabnormal name, Dugunnggunns. A Killeen adjoins thevillage.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 107177* At Whitefield there was formerly assembled a col- RESIDUE OFlection of Ogham monuments from the K* nKY -adjoining district.Two of these are now in the Museum of the Royal Irish Whitefield5Academy. The first inscribed on two angles, not con-^ C>tinuouslyNocati maqi magi rette." Nocat, son of the son of Rett " ;andMaqi mucoi uddami,nearly the last of the many examples of this obscure formula.The second Whitefield example furnishes something moretangibleAlatto cellbattigni.It was customary, and after the sixth century, for piouspersons to designate themselves as celi,or devotees of certainsaints, and of God, as the celide. Alatto, the genitive apparentlyof the archaic name Alott, is here the cell of Battignus.There are many Boithins, saints in the Irish Calendar. Wehave then here an Ogham record presumably of a late date,and eminently Christian, though without cross or other symbol.178. Between the Reeks and the Laune, near where the 65.river is crossed by Beaufort Bridge, is the well-known u ' LCave of Dunloe. It is roofed with Ogham-inscribed slabs, cave at Dun.and internally propped by an Ogham-inscribed pillar.The loepillar bears on one angle the name of Ptolemaic note in thedistrict, Cunacena. Of the inscribed roofing stones the outerone only, owing to the ends of the others being inserted in themasonry of the walls, is fully legible. It exhibits the Xcharacter in a context which rejects the ea value, and, withthe p value, yields a vocable so odd as a proper name,toicap, that one is disposed to look with favour on the suggestionof a third value dh, which I would venture to extendto th, and so readdego maqimocoi toicathi.Inside, we find the names of Rittiq, Tal, Forgos, but inincomplete contexts. The cave, I believe, was stripped manyyears ago by the Bishop of Limerick, from whom I trust,while he is stillspared to the world of learning, we may someday expect full readings.

108 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSRESIDUE OF 179. Crossing Beaufort Bridge, and proceeding a shortKUbonane distance in the direction of Milltown, we come on the ruined57 church of Kilbonane, giving name to the parish whichembraces both banks of the Laune, and, along the river onboth banks, presents much sylvan and pastoral beauty. TheRuined Church church is in the open country behind. It seems a thirteenthofKUbonane. ^ fourteenth century building. At the north side of the altarLongest inscriptioninOghamfoundis a grave covered in with a long flag of red sandstone,broken across the middle. The arrises and flat of the slabare occupied with lines of Ogham, there being three lines onthe flat, independent of those on the two arrises. Lookingwhere the commencement of the inscription should be, thesurface is uninscribed. Further on it seems to begin AgniMaqi, followed by a string of names in the Latin genitiveform. Seeking for the earlier portion of the principal name,one observes, at a considerable distance preceding the agni, ab associated with five digits, collateral to and as it were insistenton itself, quite in the manner of what has been noticed,as the sub-virgular Ogham at Killeen Cormac. The digits,however, seem to me to be natural rugce of the surface towhich the b has been accommodated. Here we perceive alittle lapidary rebus of b " o " (from) n, which, with the agnifollowing, make up the name of Bonagnus, Bonan, the founderand giver of its name to the original church. The rest ofthe legend appears to be Bonan's pedigree to his great,great, great grandfather, omitting the intermediate maqis. Iwould read it as Bonan, son of Adlon, son of Nireman, son ofEsscu, son of Lamidan, son of Dangon, terminating withMaqi Mucoi. But the modest names enumerated present amuch more pompous appearance in their amplified OghamicformsB[ONjAGNiMA[Q]IHADDILNANIReMNAQAGNIESSICONIDDALANGNIMUOILAMIT^IDAGNIb(o)nagni maqi haddilona niremnaqagni essiconiddalanqoni mucoi lamitaidaqnLbeing, I believe, the longest inscription in''legible Ogham lettersas yet yet louno.. Ine . .maqi mucoi at tne end appears to snow that

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 109these words here, as in previous examples, are not part of the RESIDUE OFpedigree, but something extrinsic and formal. If KEBUY -they be sohere, it is difficult to see why they should not be so consideredwhere interjected into other legends. I cannot but thinkthat, as I imagine is the case in the maqi decceda examplealso, the words relate to our Lord, and correspond to piousformulas thrown in at the end of other inscriptional legends,as in the biliteral Roman and Runic carving at Vinge, WestGothland, where, between the Latin at one side, and its Norseecho at the other, are interjected the words Ave Maria Gratia.But this is only my guess, and must be taken for what it mayhereafter appear to be worth.180. In the same parish, from a rath-cave in the townlandof Laharan, two inscribed pillar-stoneswere many years ago Laharandug up, and utilised in the walls of a neighbouring dwelling.They have been removed thence, and now form part of theEarl of Dunraven's collection at Adare Manor. The first isread by Mr. Brash Maqi ritta maqi colabot. (A)^The second, inscribed on two arrises, appears to repeat thelast name, which, it will be remembered, Mr. Brash also findsat Kiltera, in WaterfordLeft arris Coillabottas mqi corbi. (B)RightMaqi mucoi qcooi.(Og. Hon., 222.)181. At Adare Manor, probably derived from this region, isanother monument bearing the legend in Ogham, accordingto Mr. Du Noyer's drawing (MS., R.I.A.), confirmed by LordDunraven in the " Memorials of Adare "Corbagni maqi bifata.(c )182. An open, cheerful country extends from Kilbonane,westward to the sea. Overlooking the sands of the Bay ofCastlemaine, about midway between Killorglin and Milltown,are the lands of Tinnahally, with their rath and its cave,which has furnished two very fine examples of Ogham tothe Museum of the Academy. The a first, huge rude block,

110 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSKESIDUK OFKERUY.Tinnahally(B)162.presents X, evidently in its ea power, as coming betweenconsonants, in the legendAnm teagan maqi deglen,where all signs of inflection have disappeared, arguing comparativelya late date. It is the last anm which we meetwith. The formula is peculiar to the south and south-westof Ireland. I would, with Haigh, imagineitpracticallyequivalent to the " titulus " or " jacet " of the Welsh Romanesqueinscriptions, and that, literally,it means "the nameof" the person commemorated. The Bishop of Limerickconceives that it is a contraction for " pro anima," andequivalent to the Patrician formula oroit do, " a prayer forthe soul of."183. The second is a very fine obeliscal pillar, exhibitinga marked example of that kind of double reading alreadynoticed. It has the tenorAnmcfaruddrann Maqi (with strong digits over, verydelicately protracted under, the-Hne)do ligeinn.Son of Reading is an Irishism for scholar, or man of learning.Ardywanig47l.r.Son of two Readings,if this were so rendered, might signifya doctor in both laws. Son of Doligen seems strange to theeye as a patronymic ; and, if the early church in this regionpossessed formulas so peculiar in sepulchral composition, itscolleges probably had equally peculiar designations for theirgrades in learning. However this may be, the q, beyondquestion, is made to serve as a double element in Maqi andMari.184. Between Milltown and Castlemaine, at Ardywanig, inthe parish of Kilnanare, stands a fine pillar-stone, which inMr. Windele's time bore an Ogham legend, read by himCoftat.The whole of the inscription has since been split off by theimprudent kindling of a fire against the stone. The additionof one digit to Mr. Windele's sketch would yield the moreprobable reversed readingFestos.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND.IllThis appears to be the Ardovenagh monument on which Mr. RESIDUE OFWindele found, besides the above inscription, a cross inscribed KBKRY -in a circle (Og. Mon., 111).185- Crossing the Castlemaine river and turning westwardunder the declivities of Slieve Mish, we reach the site ofanother rath and rath cave at Keel, in the parish of Killgarrylander.The cave contained a fine inscribed pillar,now atthe neighbouring residence of Mr. Rea, at Corkaboy. It is Corkaboyinscribed on two angles, one legend terminating and the^other beginning on the top where they overlap. The firstisCATTUFFIQQMAQIRITTECattuffiqqmagi ritte.The beginning of the second is obscure ; it proceeds downthe alternate arris[iafi]CASMUCOIALLATOcas mucoi allato,in reference to which last name, and, indeed, to many ofthe names with which we have had to deal in this region, Imay observe that they are not found in other parts, either ofIreland or Britain, and indicate the presence of a verypeculiar and isolated community.Here, at Corkaboy, we are again under the precipitoussides of Cahir Conree, whence we set out on the Oghamiccircuit of Ireland now completed ; and, looking back on allthat has been, so far, observed, may pause on some of the moreobvious generalisations.First, then, we will, I think, be impressed with the generallyChristian character of these monuments ; next, with thedistinctive character of that Christianity which they represent ;and, thirdly, with the evidences of a popular repugnancetowards it, taking its rise sometime after the sixth centuryand manifesting itself down to the present time. We will beinclined, I think, to ascribe more weight to the Irish traditionof a pre-Patrician church than has latterly been accorded toit ; and, while regarding Declan, Ibar, Ailbe, and Ciaran, aschronologically following rather than preceding Patrick, willnot be indisposed to regard them as representatives rather than

112 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONS.RESIDUE OF creators of the body of Christians who dwelt south of SlieveCua, and into whose bounds neither Palladius, nor Patrickson of Calphurn, ever penetrated.A review of whatremains in Ogham lapidary work in Britain may perhapsenable us to take clearer, as they will be wider, views ;and Ipropose in my next lecture to take up the subject in Walesand South England.

CHAPTER VI.The British Oghams frequently accompanied by Roman epigraphs The LaugharOgham in Wales, inscribed on base of Roman ultar Bi-lingual inscriptions atCwm Gloyn, Usk Park, Treffgarn Pillar stones at St. Dogmael's, Llanfechan,Clydai, Cilgerran, Ruthin Ogham-inscribed stones in Devon That at Tavistockbrought from Roborough Down, near Buckland-Monachorum Fardel stone nowin British Museum Welsh Oghams atLlandawke,Trallong, Dugoed, Llanwinio,now at Middleton Hall Bi-lingual stone on Caldey Island Pillar stones atBridell, Kenfigg, near Pyle Sculptured figure on Llywell stone, now in BritishMuseum, compared with that on the Maeii Achwnfaen, near Mostyn, in Flintshire.186. THE Oghams of Britain, although much less numerous WALES.than those of Ireland, have, in almost every instance, the The Oghams ofadvantage of being accompanied by Roman epigraphsgreatof which they generally are found to be echoes. It may, by Romantherefore, be affirmed that they belong to a period subsequent 9 ra P hs -to B.C. 56, and some of them, at least, may, on reasonablegrounds, be referred to the period of Roman occupationending in A.D. 410. Of these latter, the most remarkable isthat inscribed on one angle of the base of the Roman altarpreserved at Laughar, in Glamorganshire. There is no doubtof the genuine character of the altar. Neither can there beany question that the characters are true Ogham, althoughthe letters I and c, with indistinct traces of some vowelnotches, are aU that can now be recognised. If a contemporaryinscription, it puts the use of Ogham in Britain backinto the time of surviving Paganism, and greatly impairs theargument for its Christian origin ;and it would be a somewhatforced assumption to say that it has been added by alater hand.Conjectures of this kind have been employed torebut the presumption that Oghamic monuments marked withthe cross belong to Christian times. If these be, as I conceivethey are,inadmissible, much more so would be the employment,as here, of a legend not having any Christiansignificance to sanctify a relic of Pagan worship. The

114 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSWALES.Ctvm Gloin.Park.Laughar altar would, therefore, in any largeexamination ofthe question, be provisionally regarded as a self-evidencingOghamic relic of the Pagan period. It is also, with oneexception, the only British Ogham unaccompanied by aRoman context.187. These contexts vary in their style of writing fromwell-shaped Roman capitals to mixed capitals and minusculesof the most corrupt forms. The comparative age of themonuments has usually been estimated as proportionate tothe less or greater rudeness of the lettering. Imperfection,however, is incident to the beginnings of imitation of newlysetexamples, as well as to the withdrawal of their supply ;and where other indicia exist from which reasonable inferencesmay be drawn, the palaeographic argument may have to beaccommodated to them.what is188. Such indicia are afforded very persuasively bycalled the Vitalianus inscription at Cwm Gloyn, nearThe Ogham merely expresses theNevern, Pembrokeshire.name Fitaliani. The Roman epigraphis Vitaliani Emerito,importing, it seems to me, however ungrammatically, thatVitalian was an emeritus or retired military servant of theEmpire.1Q9. The same may be said of the Usk Park inscription,Crickhowel, Breconshire. It is conceived in a Latin tastequite different from the crude Christian Oghamic formulaTurpilli ic iacit pueri triluni dunocati,echoed in part by the Ogham which employs X for theexceptional p, Turpili, and after a long lacuna two ris. Itake " triluni " to have reference to the child's life of threemonths. If a proper name, the epigraph would lose somethingof its Latin aspect, but the p of Turpill and the " pueri "would stilldistinguish it from the other biliterals of whatmay be called mere British origin, and point to a dominantRoman influence in the composition. Nevertheless, it is tobe observed that Turpill isput in the genitive, as in theIrish example, though, perhaps, the following ic iacit may bemeant to be taken in the concrete, corresponding to a suppressedlapis or titulus.190. The Hogtivis inscription at Little Treffgarn, south of

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 115Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, may also, I would suppose, be WALES.referred to the same period. The Latin legendisHogtivis filius Demeti.The H is used as in regular Latinity, not for N, as in laterexamples. That the name is Hogtivis (seemingly a Britishcorruption of Octavius), is manifested by the accompanyingOgham, which, however, carries it a step further away fromthe original by presentingit in the coarse formHUGTIFFS.All the Roman characters are capitals, although of very rudeexecution.191. Were we to judge solely by the form of the lettersand their less or greater departure from the Roman model,we might refer to about the same period the pillar-stone atSt. Dogmael's, near Cardigan, vouched in all dissertationson St.Oghamic writing, as the primary evidence for the equivalencyof Magi to the Latin Filii. It is a monument of someelegance, considering that, like all the class, it is untouchedby any other tool but the graver. It is also the first, so farnoticed in this section, which stands in an ecclesiasticalcemetery, and may reasonably be taken as Christian, althoughnot having any distinctive emblem. TheSagrani fillCunotamiof the Latin, running down the face of the stone, is echoedwith some small variations, inSagramni maqi Cunatamiof the Ogham running up its angle,in the usual course.Sagran and Cunotam (doubtless the Welsh Cyndaf) I wouldimagine to be, both, British names.192, A more rudely-executed legend, marked also by adebased form of the Latin G, although still employing theregular E instead of the Hiberno-Saxon form of that letter,from the church of Llan Vaughan or Llanfechan, in Car- Llanfeckan.marthenshire, may belong to the same category. It commemoratesTrengad, son of Maclan, as these names would

116 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSWALES. probably appear to us if presentedThe Latin text isin their secular undress.Trenacatus ic iacitfilius maglagni.The Ogham accompaniment, very clearly cut, expresses onlyTrenaccattlo,where lo remains, so far as I understand, unexplained, if itbe not the early British representation of the Gaulish loga.193. The transition from the regular Roman R to the formnow regarded as the Irish and Hiberno-Saxon varietyappears to have begun at the date of the next monument tobe noticed. This also stands in consecrated ground in theNewcastle churchyard of Clydai, near Newcastle Emlyn, in Cardiganshire.Although the top of the pillar has been cut off toform the seat for a sun-dial, the whole of the Latin andenough of the associated Ogham to show that it was an echo,remains ;eterni fillvictorETTERNTORThetogether expressing the name of Ettern, son of Victor.name Ettern, Eddern, Edeyrn,is Brito-Latin, as Victor ispurely so, and both may well be taken as of, or soon after, theOccupation period.A most attractive theory regarding thisinscription has been put forward by Haigh. He took it for amonument raised by the Emperor Flavius Victor to his uncleEternalis, both well-evidenced historic persons. But theobstacle of the fillseems to be insuperable.aiyerran. J94. In the same district, at Cilgerran, on the Teivy, in theparish cemetery, stands the pillar of Trengus. Its Latinlegend is Trenegussi fillMacutreni hie iacit.It bears a double cross, but apparently not of contemporaneousexecution or design. An Ogham has once existeddown all the length of one arris, seemingly, from whatremains, expressing the names Trengus and Maqitreni.195. So far all these indeterminate Welsh monuments, ofwhich it can only be predicated that they are of Roman butnot demonstrably of Christian times, are found in South

IX IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 117Wales. One Ogham inscribed monument only has been WALKS, DEVON.hitherto found in North Wales, and itbelongs to the samecategory. It stands in Pool Park near Ruthin, Monmouthshire, Pool Park.and bears, in well-shaped, though greatly worn, Romancharacters, what seems to be the name Amilini with hisdesignation Tovisaci W. ( tywysog, Ir. " Toisech " or chief)superadded, and this is echoed by an Ogham on the face ofthe stone where Tosech takes the form tofisac.196. Besides these, are still two other British examples found,not in Wales, but in South England, belonging to the samecategory. Both come from the district of Devonshire, borderingon Exmoor. The first, now preserved at the Rectory, Tavutock,Tavistock, originally stood on Roborough Down, near Buck- Devon -land Monachorum. Like the Tovisaci example,it adds to thename of the person commemorated his designation or calling.on the flat, echoed byDobuni fabri fill Enabarri,Enabarrin Ogham characters, now much worn but still legible, alongthe edge of the stone. Enbar would appear as Celtic a form ofname as Finbar or Cathbar ;and its occurrence so far eastwardof Wales and Cornwall cannot but be historically interesting.197. From the same region, north of Ivybridge, comes the Fardel, nowbetter known Fardel monument, now in the British Museum. *'* BntiskTheFanoni Maquiriniof its Roman epigraphisaccompanied by an Ogham expressingthe singular soundsMAQIQICI.Sfaqqucci Maqi Qici.We have, however, met Sfaqqucci before in the less repulsiveform of Saffiqegi of the Dunbell, Kilkenny, monument.It and Qici probably designate Fanon and Quirin by theirequivalents in Ogham nomenclature. The coarseness ofthe sounds grates on ears accustomed to the ordinaryharmonies of our language. Those uncouth designations may,

118 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSDEVON, WALES, however, have been adopted as evidence of self-disparagementby some Christian ascetic. The Celtic sounding Sagranin its ceremonial form Sagramni appears on the back of thestone. The letters are more in the Irish or Hiberno-Saxontaste than on the other examples above noticed and;altogether the aspect of the monument issuggestiveand Christian associations.of Irish198. A strong savour of Christian times and Irish associationalso distinguishes a Welsh Ogham monument at LlandawkeChurch, near Lougharne, in Pembrokeshire, although notmarked with any symbol. The Latin inscription on the flatreads Barrivendi FiliusVendubari, and on one edge Hie iacit,all in not unshapely capitals, save that the s of Filius isreversed. On both edges there are Oghams, which, read inthe ordinary reverse course to the Latin, yield at one sideHUMELEDONA^and at the other Maqi M(ucoi). A fracture of the top ofthe stone leaves us uncertain of what should follow; butthe space which has been occupied suggests the formulaMucoi. Here again we may reasonably conjecture thatHumeldons is the Oghamic alias of Barrfind, son of Findbar,as the subject of the memorial would, I imagine, have beencalled in the vernacular of his day, and may add this as afurther example of Mucoi terminal.199. So far, however probable the Christian origin of themonuments enumerated, or some of them, may be, we havenothing amounting to demonstrative proof. But when thecross forms part of the composition, the presumption of itsChristian origin cannot be rejected. The cross-signedOgham monuments of Wales are hardly less numerous thanthose not so distinguished, and in the palseographic point ofview may claim an equal antiquity. At Trallong, betweenCrickhowel and Brecon, there is preserved in connectionwith the parish church one of these obviously Christianmemorials, remarkable for the comparative elegance of itsRoman lettering, and for the clean-cut indisputable completenessof the accompanying Ogham ;and for a phrase of theOgham formula stillunexplained. The Latin legend is

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 119Cunacenna WALES.Cumocenni Filius Cunoceni Hie iacit, and the OghamJiil ffeto.Cunocenn or Cunacenn, has become Cyngen, as inIreland it formerly was Concon. It is obviously the patronnymicfrom which the Concani of Ptolemy took their tribename,and it need be no surprise to find itanywhere in CelticWestern Europe at any time from the earliest ages. ThisCyngen or Concon will be readily recognisedas one of theearlier British Christians ;but we cannot so readily see howthe Ogham fill ffeto corresponds as it ought to do to thefilius hie jacet of the Latin. Fiil maybeyifo', transposed byoversight or pedantry of the carver ;but Ffeto, as anequivalent for jacet, introduces us to a new verb, which, inOgham, is more than the discovery of a new species, or evena genus inNatural History.200. The same neighbourhood which yields the Etternistone, supplies another cross-signed Ogham monument at thefarm of Dugoed. It is a Maltese cross in a circle, having a Dugocd.double line below, which appears to have served at once as asupport to the cross and a stem-line for Ogham characters.Besides these there is an Ogham inscription along the arris,which readsDOFT$C8;and gives the key to the proper name Dob [ ]filius Evolengi in the Roman epigraph. Here we arereminded of Coipmac, otherwise Evolengus, the Eolangand Olan of Aghabulloge. A singularly - complicatedligature following the Dob and taking in some members ofthe Filius may contain all the letters for completingDobtageos; and digits, which formerly existed along theline of the cross's stem, may have completed the Ogham echoof both names. But between what remains of the Romanand of the Oghamic lettering, each supplanting the other,Duftac, son of Evoleng, has, on this stone, had his name andhis faith commemorated as long, perhaps, as any other Britishor Irish Christian.201. From Llanwinio, on the borders of Carmarthenshireand Pembrokeshire, there has been brought to Middleton MMdietHall, near Llandeilo, a cross-signed bi-literal monument of HaU -

120 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSWALES. exceptional interest, on account of the form taken by theOgham equivalent for the Latin avi, used seemingly in thesense of " descendant of," like the Irish " uaibh, de nepotibus,"now the common patronymical 0. The Llanwinio stone offersa singular example of Roman characters more difficult to readthan their accompanying Oghams. This arises from theemployment of ligatures, and also, I imagine, from a tamperingwith one letter. The first line, containing the principalname, has hitherto been read BIAD . The cast shows aligature of the A, thus X A, equivalent to LYA. The supposedB I take to be S. The cast also shows the supposed D as Hwith its lower section rounded into D. H is the Irish form ofN in Welsh inscriptions. Taking it so, the abnormal-lookingBiadi disappears, and its place is taken by the more recognisableSilvani. Then follows AVIBOGIBEVE, where asingularly-shaped G might leave us in further doubt, were itnot that the accompanying Ogham reads plainly loci at oneaffiside, and BEFfE at the other. It omits the principal name ;otherwise Silvanus would have been earlier detected. Thevalue of the text lies in the AVI, which both here and in thebut of whom?Irish examples appears to signify " grandson"Bogibeve is not a likely name. Mr. Haigh, in the essay referredto, by a careful analysis of all the Welsh inscriptional formulas,shows good ground for taking Bogus as the grandfather andBeve as the name of the person erecting the monument. TheOgham confirms his reasoning, showing and affiboci beffeseparately and in reverse courses of reading. A cross inscribedin an oval occupies the head of the stone.202. In all these cases the cross forms an integral part ofthe design ;but there is one cross-signed Oghamic monumenton which the Ogham certainly appears to have existed beforeits Latin legend and sculptured crosses. This is the CaldeyCaidcy Inland, inscription. It is now deposited in the church on Caldey island,Pembrokeshire. It bears the well-known Latin inscriptionbeseeching of the passers-by a prayer for the soul of Catuocon,which, if it be not an early Cadogan, may, like the Olacon ofstand for some Cathcu who had carried thatBallynesturig,warlike name to this peaceful hermitage off the rocks ofTenby. The lettering isvery Irish in all its characteristics.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 121But, what is strange, it commences with et, as if in continua- WALES.tion of something preceding ; and, while the stone was builtinto the wall of the church porch, antiquaries hoped for themissing sentences on the back, and speculated on the tracesof Ogham digits near the top as probably being in continuationof others on the concealed arrises. The removal of thestone has shown these speculations to be groundless. TheOgham is merely a fragment, the top having been broken off,and quite illegible.But what isworthy of note is, that whilethe Latin letters are deep-cut and sharp in every outline,the Ogham digits and notches are so worn and abraded thatno one looking at the monument could suppose them contemporaneous,and the engraver of Catuocon's prayer hasevidently regarded them as immaterial, two of his crosses onthe upper sides of the slab being cut through and over theattenuated traces of some of them. It is indeed a palimpsestin stone ;but the original, which it is hard to thinkeven of the early Christian period, is irrecoverable. Theyhave been read as yielding a sequence of vocables, but I amunable to follow it, and offer no transliteration.203. Reverting to the rich Oghamic tract of Cardiganshire,which has already furnished the Clydai and Dugoed examples,I would now refer to the neighbouring parish of Bridell. Brideii stone.Here a great pillar of stone, worthy to compare with some ofthe Irish examples, stands in the churchyard. It bears aquatrefoil cross in a circle on one side, and an unusuallylong Ogham legend along the angle. It, however, possessesno other inscription by which the transliteration or construingof itsOgham might be helped ; and the disintegration of itslichen-covered surface makes the determination of their valuesextremely difficult. The legend begins near the bottom withthe group Netta Sagri, or Nettasagruma. The differencedepends on whether one indentation is a vowel notch or anatural flaw. In any case we recognise the Irish Netta.Then follows Maqi Mucoi greci or bred, depending on whethersix or seven scores have been employed at the top. I haveno doubt there are seven, and all cross the line. Whether itbe bred or gred, the matter of chief interest is the occurrencehere of the frequent Irish formula Maqi mucoL It is to Mr.

122 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSWALES. Brash I am indebted for correcting an erroneous reading ofhad imagined con-my own in this group of digits, which Itained the name of a Bishop Oudoc. The only criterion forthe age of the monument is the style of the Ogham lettering,which employs both short digits and notches forvowels, andmay, I think, be therefore regarded as among the latest ofthe Welsh Ogham monuments.204. Still, what should be deemed late, and what early,rests in the utmost vagueness, unless some time can befixed before or after which there may be reasonable groundfor supposing some of those inscriptions to have been executed,and there remain two of them which may, I think,justify some speculation more or less confident in thatKenfigg stone direction. These are the Kenfigg and the Llywell monuatPyie.ments. The Kenfigg stone, standing by the high-road fromPyle to Mar gam, in Glamorganshire, bears a Roman inscriptiondown its face, with Ogham characters on its adjoiningside arrises. The top arris I would say, from careful examination,has never borne any inscription. The surface, withits natural pittings and rugosities, bears no appearance ofhaving anywhere been smoothed or abraded, and is free fromthe least trace of artificial sculpture. The Latin epigraph,it isagreed on all hands, is Pampeius Carantorius. The eis of the Irish or Hiberno-Saxon form, e, being, with oneexception, the only instance in which the Roman epigraphsassociated with these Welsh Oghams exhibit thelate Irish influence. Its presence would seem to me todenote a period when personages bearing Roman namesof distinction were no longer resident in Britain, and toshow that Ogham writing and the word maqi for " son "lingered in Britain at least until after the Irish characterhad been partly adopted into lapidary writing. TheBishop of Limerick, I would think, has hardly allowed timefor its adoption into British lapidary writing when heseeks to find here the name of Saint Carentoc of the sixthcentury, though he was the son of Pompa and Pompa, in;the form Popa, may possibly be spelled in one section of theOgham. It would be a very welcome standing-ground forthis Welsh exploration if one could accept this identification

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 123as unreservedly as that of St. Olan. But I confess I regard WALES.the characters taken as p p in the Ogham group to the rightas symbols, not letters. They are tri-radial groups correspondingto the alleged old Welsh symbol of the Trinity.The received opinion of late years has been that the symbolis of modern origin. I am bound to say I do not think so.If I do not deceive myself, it exists on the Hayle inscriptionin Cornwall, associated with a Roman in pace. Everythingat this side I take to be symbolical, and believe it a fairquestion whether, with their accompanying groups of vowels,there be not here three such tri-radial characters ; and,regarding these associated vowels, I will further own that 1do not consider the statement of there having been a vocalicequivalent for the tri-radial symbol as by any means a bardicimposture. One limb of one of these symbols is protractedacross the line, and, if it stood alone, would form m. On theopposite side and we may remember the examples ofdetached initials, already noticed are the remains of ato thelengthy Ogham inscription, extending from the topground. We can recognise erl and, after abraded vowelplaces, digits which may be the remains of ng, followed, afterother abrasions, by n magi II,and this, after a further lacuna,by na, all which contain in their proper sequence the essentialparts of the legend(M)erl(i)ng(i a)nmaq(i)ll(ia)na.Merlingi anmaqi lliana.The designation of Merlin in Welsh tradition is an map lliana,or the misborn son of the nun. He was the child without afather of thelegend of Vortigern, as old at least as the tenthcentury, and the very head of Welsh esoteric mysticaldoctrine. I do not suppose that this is his grave, but Isubmit that the monument is later than the story of the sonof the Nun of Carmarthen who confounded the Druids ofVortigern, and that we must consider Ogham writing andthe formula maqi to have survived in Wales down at least tosome time after his era.205. At the other terminus of the inquiry, the Llywell Llywdi stone.stone will supply matter for a good deal of reflection. It

124 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSWALES. was found, I believe, at a place near Trecastle, in Breconshire,called Pant y Cadno, and is now in the British Museum,and is charged, face, back, and one arris, with inscriptionalwork. A Koman legend runs up the back, echoed by anOgham one running down the arris, and the face of the stoneis covered down to the ground-line with ornamentation andbarbaric imagery, and possibly something more. The Romancharacters are slightly debased capitals.The only uncertaintiesare whether the first letter is M or V, and whether thesixth letter from the bottom is a C or a debased G. To myeye the initial is V and the other G, yielding the readingVaccutreniimaqisaligiduni.It is the only instance of a Latin maqi, and appears to commemorateMaccutren son of Salgin or Sulgen, and is echoedby the shorter OghamMaqitrenii salicidni.Maccutrenus is already familiar to us, and may be Irish orBritish-Celtic. Sulgen is Welsh, and, I would suppose, mayequally be Irish. Let us now turn to the face. It is. somewhatwider at top. Horizontal lines divide it into fourpanels, under the lowermost of which the surface is leftuntouched, for insertion in the ground. Being so inserted,the first section of the Roman and the concluding section ofthe Ogham inscription are buried out of sight, leaving thepanelled face in full view. The first thing that strikes oneis, that here is a kind of barbaric ornamentation very muchin the style of the Irish Pagan monuments. But that thework is Christian is evinced by crosses introduced at eitherside of a figure represented as trampling on a serpent in thethird panel.The extraordinary rudeness of this figurewhich consists merely of a circle with dots for the head, twolines diverging below for the limbs and feet, and two for theFigure on the arms, there being no body would make one hesitate instone,ascribing any intelligible meaning to it, were it not that thefigure on the lower front panel of the sculptured cross called^e Maen Achwnfaen, near Mostyn, in Flintshire, engaged intured cross near similar action, gives a key to the sculptor's intention. TheMostyn. Flintshire figure itself is barbarous in a high degree, but

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 125exhibits a body and limbs contained within outlines, and WALKS.expresses, with a good deal of spirit, trampling action. It isunnecessary here to inquire whether it be a spear it grasps inone hand or the tail of the serpent. It must be accepted asa remarkable instance of the possible combination of verygood art in ornamentation (forthis is one of the most elaborately-designedand decorated of all the British crosses) withextremely low ideas in the drawing of the human figure.The being who tramples on the serpent, however, in theFlintshire example, is well pictured in comparison with thecorresponding figure on this Breconshire pillar-stone. Anotherattempt to represent a bishop with his pastoral staff on thepanel below is equally infantile and excessively grotesque.A dotted circle for the head, two lines, divergent below, forthe limbs and feet ;two lines, one of them branching in threeat the extremity, for the arms and a hand ;and another forthe curved-headed crozier, constitute this second figure, thegeneral effect of which is singularly like the barbaric imageryof some of the Loughcrew monuments. The accessories arealtogether in the taste of the Irish Pagan monuments flowingzig-zags, concentric curves, and rows of short parallel straightlines insistent on and dependent from others. A third intimationof a human figure appears at one side of the top,inscribed with a St.having near it a shield-like object,Andrew's cross. The next panel below, charged with acomplication of curves and reticulations, is traversed by astrongly-incised tri-radial device issuing from above. In thisit is difficult not to recognise the same object employed onthe Kenfigg monument. It is followed, on the panel below,by a catena of ten lunette-shaped characters resembling thefour Coll Ogham digits which stand for the vowel e in theKilbonane legend. There are ten of these, which, as Oghams,would yield the vowels o, i, u. It was intimated in commentingon the Kenfigg stone, that certain vowel groups havebeen alleged to have a known relation to this tri-radial figure.They express, according to modern Welsh bardism, themystery of the Trinity and the Divine name. In the languageof the Barddas, the voice in which God declared Himself" had in it the utterance of the three notes corresponding to

126 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSWALES. the three rays Thus was the voice that was heard placedon record in the symbol. The sense of was given to thefirst column, the sense of I to the second or middle column,and the sense of V to the third It was thus that God declaredHis name and existence, Q*. ." The writer vouches noauthority for what he allegesolder than that of Welshmystical writers of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries,and the tri-radial symbol and its vocalic exponent have beengenerally rejected by modern scholars, as late and dishonestinventions. These lapidary evidences, however, givethe subject a new aspect, and itmay be worth while in theirpresence to recur to the words of one of the Welsh writers,vouched by Ab Ithel, Davydd Nanmor, who died A.D. 1460,in reference to our Lord0. i. ag W. yu ag Oen.He is 0. I. & W., and a Lamb.To which itmay be added that the same authorities allegethe original 0. I. V. (which would be Oghamically)was prior to the time of Taliesin written, as ten CollOghams are capable of being sounded, 0. I. 0. (Barddas,p. 65.)This catena is followed by the remains of what appearto have been alphabetic characters, and by digits in allrespects similar to those which, on Breton and Norse rockcarvings have hitherto been taken for boats with theircrews, here inverted. They are identical with the objectsseen on the sculptured sepulchral slabs of the IrishPagan tumuli at Loughcrew. If they be real links betweenthe digit and notch Ogham of this class of monuments, andthe fantastic sculpturings of the Pagan tombs of Ireland,field of inscriptional inquiry would acquire vastly-enlargedbounds, and a new and extraordinary literary interest ;buteverything is so wild and disorderly on the Irish Pagansculptures, that the prospect of eliciting material for anytangible comparison is extremely remote. One cannot, however,look on these survivals of the Pagan taste, interminglingwith the first efforts of art in Christian symbolism, without astrong conviction that the monument belongs to the verythe

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 127earliest age of Christianity in Britain, and that the much- WALES.discredited date of the end of the second century for the missionof Fagan and Dubric looks less improbable in the light of thislapidary record from the country of the Silures.206. During this examination of Welsh monuments, rangingprobably from the third or fourth, and coming down, itmaybe, to the sixth or seventh century, a statement in Cormac'sGlossary respecting the Welshmen who accompanied Patrickto Ireland, already referred to in connection with Irish examplessupplementing the ordinary Ogham alphabet with an exceptionalcharacter for the letter P, will often have recurred tothe mind :" CRUIMTHEE, i.e., the Gaelic of presbyter. In Welsh it is premier :prem, 'worm,' in the Welsh is crvim in the Gaelic. Cruimther, then,is not a correct change of presbyter but it is a correct change of premier.:The Britons, then, who were in attendance on Patrick when preachingwere they who made the change, and it is primter that they changed ;and accordingly the literati of the Britons explained it, i.e. as the wormis bare, sic decet presbyterum, who is bare of sins and quite naked ofthe world, &c., secundum eum qui dixit ego [autem] sum vermis [Ps.xxii. 6 : ataimse conad cruim me 7 nach duine B], &c."If this mac was mop,it is difficult to understand how it comesthat the formulas in use in these inscriptionsare maqi, maccu,and that so many of the proper names are Irish in aspect,unless on the theory of an Irish Celtic occupation of thoseparts of Wales and South Britain in which the monuments arefound. The fact of some kind of occupation by Irish Celts,whether .by conquest or friendly settlement, during the secondor third century, and thenceforward till their expulsion aboutthe close of the sixth, isvery strongly attested both by Welshand Irish authority of a high antiquity. Whether Nennius,or the continuator of Nennius, be the author, an Irish settlementof the sons of Liathan in South Wales is one of theoldest British historical events on native record. The Irishannalists allege an extended dominion over Britain, by whichprobably we are to understand, Wales and Cornwall, in andsubsequent to the reign of Criffan, son of Fidach, A.D. 360.Cormac's Glossary carries back the Welsh and South Britishintercourse to an earlier period. The historic genuineness of

128 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSWALES. the tradition may be inferred from its being given in theGlossary as incidental to a comparatively trivial story of theimportation of the first lapdog into Ireland. Testimoniesgiven thus undesignedly are free from the suspicion of beingfabricated for an historical purpose. The entry under theheading Mug eime, slave of the hilt, is as follows :" Mug-Eime, that is the name of the first lapdog that was in Ireland.Cairbre Muse, son of Conaire (1) brought it from the east from Britain ;for when great was the power of the Gael on Britain, they divided Albabetween them into districts, and each knew the residence of his friend,and not less did the Gael dwell on the east side of the sea quam inScotica, and their habitations and royal forts were built there. Indedicitur Dinn Tradui, i.e., Triple-fossed Fort, of Crimthann the Great,son of Fidach (2), King of Ireland and Alba to the Ictian sea (3).It isthere was Glass s.on of Cass, Swineherd of the King of Hiruaith (4),with his swine feeding, and it was he that Patrick resuscitated at theend of six score (a) years after he was slain by the soldiers of Mac Con.And it is in that part of Dinn map Lethain in the lands of the CornishBritons, i.e., the Fort of Mac Liathain, for mac is the same as map inthe British. Thus every tribe divided on that side (b),for its propertyto the east was equal [to that on the west] (c),and they continued inthis power till long after the coming of Patrick. Hence Cairbre Musewas visitingin the East his family and his friends. At this time nolapdog had come into the land of Eirin, and the Britons commandedthat no lapdog should be given to the Gael on solicitation or by freewill, for gratitudeor friendship. Now at this time the law among theBritons was, ' Every criminal for his crime such as breaks the law ' (a).There was a beautiful lapdog in the possession of a friend of CairbreMuse in Britain, and Cairbre gotit from him [thus]. Once as Cairbre[went] to his house, he was made welcome to everything save the lapdog.Cairbre Muse had a wonderful skene, around the haft whereof wasadornment of silver and gold.It was a precious jewel. Cairbre putmuch grease about it and rubbed fat meat to its haft, and afterwardsleft it before the lapdog. The lapdog began and continued to gnaw thehaft tillmorning, and hurt the knife, so that it was not beautiful. Onthe morrow Cairbre made great complaint of this, and was sorry for it,'and demanded justicefor it of his friend. That is fair indeed : I will'pay for the trespass,' said he. I will not take aught,' says Cairbre,*save what is in the law of Britain, namely, " every animal for hiscrime." ' The lapdog was therefore given to Cairbre, and the name,

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 129i.e.Mug-eime (slave of a haft) clung to it, from mug ' a slave ' [and eim WALES.a haft'], because it was given on account of the skene. The lapdog'(being a bitch) was then with young. Ailill Flann the Little (5)wasthen king over Munster, and Cormac, grandson of Conn (6), at Tara ;and the three took to wrangling, and to demand and contend for thelapdog and the way in which the matter was settled between the three;of them was this, that the dog should abide for a certain time in thehouse of each. The dog afterwards littered, and each of them took apup of her litter, and in this wise descends every lapdog in Irelandstill."It will probably be thought that at this time the presence ofthe Irish was rather that of peaceful settlers, for the law towhich reference is made was Roman law, and a hostile occupationof imperial territory was little likely at this period. If,then, there were an Irish population speaking a languagedifferent from that of the native British in these regions atthat time, it would appear highly probable that the Irishsoundingformulas and names found on Welsh and SouthBritish Ogham inscriptions ought to be ascribed to them. Itis indeed verydifficult to come to any other conclusion,if itbe conceded that in St. Patrick's time the Welsh ecclesiasticscould not pronounce CruimtJiir, but called it Prempter. Butthis depends on whether the Welsh in question were companionsof Patrick of Dumbarton, the son of Calphurn, orof Palladius, also called Patrick. There is no doubt thatPalladius sailed on his Irish mission attended by numbers ofBritons from the port of Menevea, now St. David's, in A.D. 431.it would beIf the Britons who accompanied him used p for k,extremely difficult to treat the maqis of the Welsh Oghams asof British origin. But the language of Western and SouthernBritain during the time of the Roman occupation, so far as itcan be judged of by the names of persons and places andtheir occasional interpretationsin works of early authority, isargued with much force to have been substantially the sameas that which may legitimately be supposed to have thenbeen spoken in Ireland ;and the differences which now existbetween the Welsh and Irish languages are sought to beaccounted for, and not unreasonably, by that Cymric invasionfrom North Britain of the 6th century led by Cunedda and

130 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSWALES. his eight sons, which British scholars are agreed in acceptingas an historical event. To these Britons of Cumbria andStrathclyde from the north, and to subsequent Cymric infusionspouring themselves westward before Anglo-Saxon pressure,the change may be due which, as early as Cormac's time,had made Mac and Irish, Map Welsh and; assuming PatrickCalphurnides to have been accompanied on his Irish missionby Britons of that Cymric race and language, the statementof Cormac may be referred to him rather than to Palladius,and may well consist with the Welsh claim to be left inpossession of their old Ogham monuments.207. The palaeographic difficulty remains. Assume ^thelanguage of Britain before the epoch of Cunedda to havebeen the same with that of Ireland. Assume the Cuneddanrevolution to have altered it into the language of the nowoldest Welsh writings. The wa^'-bearing Ogham epigraphsmust then be referred to the pre-Cuneddan period, during thegreater part of which good Roman models were at hand, andthe production of letters so debased as we find associated withmany of the examples, rendered, in the estimation of scholars,unlikely if not impossible. It may be a question whetherscholarship has not overreached itself by excessive scientificnicety, or whether the continuing maqi be not hieratic, and asurvival of some special school of inscriptional phraseology.This might be supposed in the case of formulas like maqi andmaccuy but that the Irish-sounding names should also havebeen continued after their Welsh modifications had come intouse, seems hard to admit. To the fourth, fifth, and sixthcenturies, however, if we accept the theory of an identicalspeech in Ireland and Britain, we seem coerced to refer theOghams the subject of this lecture, although associated withepigraphs which we have been taught to regard as two,three, and four centuries later in date. Notwithstandingthese difficulties, the inclination of my own mind wouldbe to accept the theory, especially as in the old Irishtradition preserved in the Book of Invasions the Fid-gentaor people of the woods, the autochthones of Ireland aredesignated Britons. Holding this view, I should be bound toadmit that, cceteris paribus, a British claim to have imparted

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 131this kind of writing to the Irish would rest on reasonable WALES.probability. For the Irish were there in as good a position tobe receivers of the gift as bestowers of it ;the Ogham basesitself on an alphabetic system, having a Latin aspect ;and thenatural course of transmission of Latin influences would primafacie be through Britain to the outer island. But if theOgham be of British origin, it may be affirmed with confidencethat it originated there after the British emigration toArmorica, generally referred to the time of Maximus, 383-9 ;for, notwithstanding extended special search, no Ogham hasever been found in Brittany or elsewhere on the Continent.208. But a greater than the palasographic difficulty muststill be surmounted before we can say that Ogham was ofBritish as distinguished from Irish origin, or vice versa. Onthe one hand, we may have been struck, in the Welshexamples, with the absence of scholastic trickeries. On theother, we will have noticed that they almost all present theirgenitive name-terminations in the Latin i; and that suchforms as the Irish ias, as, a ; os, o ;are absent. Language isdistinguished from the other gifts of man in this, that it becomesmore perfect, in the sense of having more inflectionalforms, as we go back towards its beginnings. These guidesto the relations of words undergo a continual process of decayand removal ; dropping, first, one syllable, then another, thendisappearing altogether. I do not suppose that philology hasany means of computing the time necessary for these changes ;but, as they are gradual, their successions must cover largespaces of human history. If we try to estimate what time ittook the ias genitive to shorten into as and a or the i ; genitiveto recede from the termination, and hide itself in the bodyof the word, as in maic for maqi, we shall find ourselvesdemanding periods long behind the Roman advent, and must,in that case, give the prior use to the place in which theseforms are found. But if these be not true inflectional forms,but only pedantic devices of the Irish carvers, the conclusionwould be that Ogham writing, after its discontinuance inWales, went on through several stages of a spurious refinement,in the south of Ireland; and to that conclusion, Iacknowledge, my own mind is, at present, the more attracted.

132 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONS.WALES.209. The discontinuance of Ogham-writing in Wales seemsto correspond in date with the reforms consequent on themission of Augustine. Both in Wales and Ireland there hadbeen great need of reformation : Gildas has drawn the Britishhalf of the picture in very dark colours, but with outlines tooindistinct to give us more than an indefinite sense of viceand apostacy. We know also how obscure and intangibleare the traces of that early Welsh mysticism which AlgernonHerbert, in his Neo-Druidic Heresy, deduces from the ambiguouslanguage of the Bards, but it seems pretty evident thatthere was something esoteric there ; and, indeed, we mayunconsciously have already had a sample of it in the Kenfigginscription. If I have been right in deducing the nameSon without human father, from itsOgham, andMerlin, thethis have its echo, as we might expect, in sense, if not insound, in the Roman epigraph,it is quite conceivable thatHe who, in religious language, by His five wounds givesmankind their saving assurance, may be indicated underthe associated Pumpeius Carantorius. The Irish hagiologistsare also vague and unsatisfying, but they indicate substantiallythat there was something much amiss in the IrishChurch about the same time. Brigid had prophesied thatevil teachers were to come who should overthrow doctrineand seduce almost all men ;and her biographer, Cogitosus,declares that when King Ainmire, the reformer of the Bards,called in Gildas to restore ecclesiastical law, all, from thehighest to the lowest, had lost the Catholic faith ;while St.Hildegard, in her life of Desibode, shows the continuing beliefin some great heterodoxy of the Irish of the sixth century byrepresenting them as having, in many cases, turned Jews,and, in many, relapsed into Paganism. In this view of thetwo Churches both Ogham-using, and both under orthodoxcensure we may, I think, see the causes which in Wales ledto the disuse of this kind of writing, and, in Ireland, to thedisuse also of the graveyards of the sectaries.

CHAPTER VII.Scottish Oghams differ from those in Ireland, Wales, and England ShetlandOghams ; Lunnasting St. Niniari's Bressay Orkney : : ; Burrian, Aberdeenshire ;Newton :Logic Aboyne Scoonie stone in Fifeshire Golspie in Sutherland.:210. ALL the older Oghamic monuments of Ireland, and all SCOTLAND.those of Wales and South England, so far as they are knownto us, are of the digit and notch kind. The Oghamic monu- Scottishments of Scotland, on the contrary, are all of what has beenj^^^"termed the scholastic variety, in which digits constitute ireiand,w

134 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSSCOTLAND.Shetland.Lunnasting.the sculptured stones of Aberdeen, Fifeshire, and Sutherland,for final examination. The first, then, of the Scottish islandinscriptions which I shall observe on, is that from Lunnasting,on the mainland of Shetland. It is very clearly, I hadalmost said elegantly, cut on a smooth flag, which retainsthe traces of every character. It is, besides, provided withword-divisions; yet the artist has succeeded in making itone of the obscurest Oghams with which we are acquainted.A cross accompanies it, and a cross designates the commencement.It exhibits one group of coll digits, recalling theexamples at Kilbonane and Llywell ; and, in the initial of thesecond word, employs a character which, in one of the listsof sigla or key alphabets of the Irish Book of Ballymote,is set down for s. All its digit-groups are tied, and freefrom the least doubt as to number or position. The transliteration,however, is singularly repellent:TTUIcJlHEATTS SEAHHTTANNN HCCFF^FF : : NEHHTONN.&c. * ttuicuheatts seahhttannn hccffeff nehhtonn.St. Ninian's.Tuicuheat might ally itself with the Toichthec of otherexamples, and the legend might commemorate a sechtain orseptenary of his kindred, amongst whom Nechton might beone : but the intermediate collection of digits, liccffeff, conveysnothing articulate to the ear, and suggests no meaning tothe mind, nor will any alternative antithetical or exchangeableadjustment, so far as I can see, solve the riddle, though,without doubt, the characters, when inscribed, had a meaningfor those who had the key.211. The second Shetland Oghamis from the ecclesiasticalsite of St. Ninian's. It is imperfect at the commencement,but complete at its ending, and consists of two words at most-esmeqqnann ammoffest.The name seems a diminutive of affection, and the predicatehas all the look of a superlative in est, but further I do notenter on the dangerous field of philology.212. The third example from Shetland, the Bressay monument,affords further evidence of the Ogham having been in

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 135use among a mixed Celtic and Norse population, and a most SCOTLAND.welcome and well-assured standing-ground in chronology. Iknow not whether to regard the Bishop of Limerick's identificationof the St. Olan monument in Ireland or of this recordof the descendants of Naddodd, the discoverer of Iceland, asthe more brilliant critical achievement. It is now nearlythirty years since Dr. Graves read his paper on the BressayStone before the Royal Irish Academy. Up to that time thestrong presumption was that Celtic forms only should belooked for. It is not until now that any suspicion of Icelandicor old English forms of speech being concealed in otherOgham legends of the Scottish islands has been expressed.Dr. Graves, however, finding the undoubted sequence dattrrfollowing a proper name in the s possessive, at once perceivedthe Norse character of the monument, and the direction inwhich his search after the names of the persons commemoratedshould be conducted. The stone is in marked contrastwith the modest slabs described in the preceding paragraphs.It is of considerable size, covered on both faces with Christianecclesiastical sculpturings, set in a symbolical frameworkrepresenting the swallowing and disgorgement of Jonah, andengraved on both edges with Ogham legends. These, notwithstandingsome pedantries belonging to the later school ofwriting, may be transliterated?CEROBSCC :NAHHTFFDDADDS:DATTRR:ccrroscc nahht/ddadds dattrr an ,the terminal digits being uncertain ;andBENNR P ES :MEQQDDRROI ANN.bennrres meqqddrroi ann.aNN.Dr. Graves has pointed out that ccrroscc for crocs is in harmonywith other Irish examples, and that Nathdod, who discoveredIceland A.D. 861, had a grandson Benir, towhom if we referthe Bressay monument, we shall bring the probable age ofthis writing to about the middle of the tenth century.213. I next take up the Orkney example. It comes from Orkney.the Broch (Burgh) or dry-stone round castle of Burrian, in theIsland of North Ronaldsay, and is now in the National Museum

136 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSSCOTLAND. of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. It is a small slab,on the smooth surface of which a cross has been engraved,along with a line of Ogham lettering very delicately cut onan incised stem-line. It I is, fancy, the most minute lapidaryOgham hitherto found. Unfortunately some of its groups areobliterated. It has no division points, and its series of wordshas to be made out on presumption, and by way of trial. Thecommencing syllables appear to make a proper name endingin rrann or ragg. They are followed by groups of digits yieldingthe sequence u(u)rract, which, in a Norse or old Englishlegend, would without difficulty be accepted for " wrought,"or " engraved" after ; u(u)rract comes a combination of digitgroups, beginning with the X to which ea, p, and a possible thforce have been ascribed, but incapable, as it stands, of yieldingany intelligible syllabic sequence. The next and final wordbegins with angulated digits, which, as Runes, would havethe force of cc. We are here on the confines of the Norseinfluence, and may accept these values the more readilybecause the groups which follow plainly express, with them,ccrroccs, " cross." Here, then, are four words, of which thesecond and fourth are sensible and relevant to the accompanyingsculpture, and the first and third, as they stand,We insensible.have had examples of entire legends insensible until inverted,but no evidence as yet of partial inversions of theconstituent words. Such, however, would seem to be the keyto the Burrian Ogham. The group, illegible as it stood,before ccrroccs, turned upside down, becomes thetts, "this."For the Burrian legend, therefore, I would submit the transliteration(? rrann) uurract thetts ccrroccs.(? rrann) wrought (engraved) this cross.How lapidary writing in Ogham came into Orkney and theShetlands, may exercise a good deal of speculation. Themore obvious idea would be that it had been introduced bythe Columban clergy. But the question might be asked withmuch cogency how ithappens that there are no traces ofOgham at lona, or Derry, or Durrow, or Kells, or at any ofthe centres of Columban missionary activity on the Continent?

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 137The pre-Columban Christianity of Scotland was that, of Gallo- SCOTLAND.way and Strathclyde, and, if we may credit certain legendarystatements, which, however, have been generally discredited,an earlier infusion direct from the east into northern Pictland.Galloway and Strathclyde are destitute of Oghams. Pictlandalone on the mainland of Scotland possesses them, in likemanner as it alone possesses its particular lapidary symbolicsculptures. Pictland, certainly, would be the highway to theNorthern Islands and to Iceland, and itmay be worth considerationwhether the Christian monks called Papas, whomthe discoverers of Iceland found there in the ninth century,were not the representatives of some such pre-Columbaninfluence from the Scottish mainland for ; Papa, although ithas lingered in the Breton Church, is certainly not Columbannor Irish, but characteristically Eastern.214. The monument on the mainland of Scotland which inits general aspect most resembles the old Irish and Welshexamples, is that at Newton, in the Garioch, Aberdeenshire. Newton.The front of the stone bears an inscription of considerablelength in very singular characters, accompanied by along Ogham legend extending down one side, and having atthe lower end a lateral loop not unlike the knot on a Runicworm-band. The loop section has an incised stem-line : theprincipal line of Ogham follows the drum or natural convexityof the stone where the face rounds into the side. A cross ofthe filfot kind occurs in the middle of the front inscription,and a cross appears in the Oghamat the front where thecollateral digits branch off. It may be thought that no sofantastic forms of letters as those of the principal epigraphhave ever been derived from the Roman alphabet. But thatopinion will hardly be retained after an inspection of some ofthe Welsh non-0ghamic lapidary legends, and will, I think,be promptly dismissed in presence of the oak-carved inscriptionsof Llanfair Waterdine, Salop. Here, on the chancel-railof a church of the fourteenth or fifteenth century are twolegends in raised characters even more strange to the eyethan anything in the Newton epigraph. Yet they are nomore than Roman characters and sigla pedantically disguised,as appears from the Maria with which the first begins, and

138 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSSCOTLAND. the words Esrl flii concludingthe second. These Llanfairtexts are adduced, not for the purpose of further elucidatingthem, which would be beside the present inquiry, but as aninstance of the extent to which inscriptional fantasy hasgone under Welsh ecclesiastical influences, and as a cautionagainst our allowing the not greater distortions of the Newtontext to deter us from seeking their explanation in thealphabet by which we have hitherto found all the British andIrish bi-literal epigraphs explainable. And if the mind be keptfrom remote and foreign analogies, and prepared to recognisefamiliar forms, though in glyptical masquerade, the eye,even cursorily glancing over the principal Newton legend,can hardlyfail to take in some tangible Latin sequences. Inthe second line Furtrin, Rex ;in the third, Gito ho loco, witha sign of contraction over the ho ;in the fourth and fifth,usscetlifili sitrgsi ; and in the fifth what seem to be ligaturesof the component letters of sepultus.The name at top is amonogram like the duplex Cellach bound upin another set ofligatures. 7, L, T, U, and F are easily distinguishable ineach of its two parts. Turning to the Ogham, we experienceexcessive embarrassment from the absence of any definitestem-line ;from the disregard of any distinction betweenconsonantal and vowel groups,itbeingleft uncertain or forascertainment from the context whether, for example, a groupof five digits crossing the drum is to be taken for R or for /;as well as from the probably intentional dropping out of lettersand syllables.What presents itself at first sight, includingthe loop in parenthesis and accepting as a digit a faint indentationto complete the g of regs, not hitherto taken intoaccount, seems to beuu dd mq qnsn forrennq (regs gist)X tli.This may receive some slight expansion from further acceptinga faint underline curved mark after the q of qnsn for ui,and a prolongation of three of the digits of the first r into theopposite superior group as equivalent to an inserted t, givingudd mq quinsn fotrennq regs gistX tli,yielding, if both ends of the line be taken as reading towardsX and the supposed omitted letters be added,iltudd m(a)q quins(anti)n fortrennq regs gist.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 139And certainly the Romanesque monogram,if read like the SCOTLAND.cypher Cellach outward from the centre, is quite adaptableto Itudd in the form Iltulf : and Iltulf or Indulf certainly wasking of Fortren or Pictland, and was slain A.D. 961, at Innercolan,in Aberdeenshire, not far north of the Garioch ;whichwould all hang together with reasonable appearance of probabilitywere it not stated, valeat quantum, in the Pictishchronicle that Indulf was buried in lona. I do not attemptto reconcile the discrepancy, but present the reading for whatitmay be worth, as the only seeming solution to which theselapidary texts conduct.215. There remain now the four Ogham inscriptions, atLogie and Aboyne, Aberdeenshire Scoonie in; Fife, andGolspie in Sutherland. The Logie ring-Ogham is associated Logie ringwithwhat will, I believe, be shown to be Marian Emblems. 9liam -The name Maria contains five letters, and it is made upseemingly of five groups of digits but there the resemblance;ceases. The only vocalisable sequence having any resemblanceto a name which it presents is Togtuch, which,could be sure of it, might be compared with Toicthech andToggittac; but the "wheel-Ogham" was cryptic of thecryptic. In the Amra Coluimkille, a eulogistic elegy by thebard Dalian Forgaill, the art of reading the " wheel-Ogham "if weis enumerated among Columba's accomplishments. I fear ithas not been transmitted to our times.216. Neither can I add anything to what is already knownof the Aboyne legend. It was at once seen that the first lineread^MAQQOITALLUORRH,Maqqoi talluorrh,where the A has evidently the same force as in the " Ingeborh "of the Stennis Runes, and, no one doubts, makes up the nameof a Pictish Talorg. The second line remained unread tillMr. Skene, our Celto-Scottish historian, detected in it whatseems the Ogham equivalents of an expression in use inold Picto-Scottish charters. The Book of the Monastery ofDeer, in recording the grants made to that community by thekings and nobles of Pictland, uses two forms of expressiondo" rat, donavit," and ro" bait, immolavit." The reason for

140 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSSCOTLAND.Scoonie.the distinction may now, perhaps, be apparent. Grants tothe Celtic church were made, as well through voluntarypiety as in condonation of personal immoralities. Thoserecorded in the Welsh Book of Llandaff were almost all madeby transgressors of the moral or ecclesiastical law, in considerationof re-admission to church privileges. If do rat beproper to voluntary grants, and ro bait to these compulsoryones, we would understand the reason for something peculiarin the Ogham now under consideration. Mr. Skene rendersit

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 141discontinuance.The mysterious elephant-like symbol, often SCOTLAND.appearing on the Scottish sculptured stones, surmounts thescene. Its presence might alone assure us that the hunt istypical and has an inner meaning. Other grounds, however,exist for the same conclusion. The subject is one of veryfrequentoccurrence, both in ecclesiastical lapidary sculptureand wood-carving. The sculptured slab of the stonecoffin of St. Andrew's gives, I imagine, a key to the emblematicalcharacter of them all. Here, at one side is the substitutedram of the sacrifice of Abraham. At the other, amounted hunter pursues the deer, which isentangled in thethicket. A footman below chases wild beasts, which seemto elude him. A composite creature, half-lion half-eagle, offrequent occurrence in church sculpture, preys on a carcassin the foreground at the feet of a Samson rending the jawsof the lion, all intensely Christian, recondite, and symbolical.It isenough for the present purpose to point out that theobject of the horseman's chase is not the typical ram, but itsantitype, so that if we accept the analogy of the St. Andrew'smonument, these hunting scenes point to the pursuit of salvationin Christ. The picture, however, has a reverse, in which Iwould suppose the theme of the Wild Huntsman has its origin.The most notable illustration known to me is that on the portalof St. Zeno's at Verona, where a mounted king pursues a stagwith horn and hounds, but his horse has been provided bySatan, and bears him to the infernal gates. There is a vagueidea, which I have not traced to any certain source, that itrepresents Theodoric carried to destruction by heresy.accompanying Latin legend countenances the interpretationRegem stultum :petit infernale tributum,Moxque paratur equus quern misit demon iniquus,Exit aquila nisus petit infera non rediturus.Nisus equus ferus canis.His datur hos dat averno.Oh, the mad King, he seeks his doleful duesOn steed the devil finds him for his use,Hawk, eagle, horse, hound, bounding beast, to theseHe's given ;these gives he for perdition's fees.The

142 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSSCOTLAND.His fatal quarry, so, with hound and horn,He hunts through Hell-gate, never to return.Elginshire.Brodlc Stone.What the eagle or eagle-hawk may mean in either compositionI do not attempt to explain, but infer that the hunt onthe Scoonie standing stone is, like that on the St. Andrew'sstone coffin slab, allegorical, and that, as regards the horsesof the riders it is in contrast with that at St. Zeno's. TheOgham expresses but a single name which seems to me tobeEDDARRNONN.Eddarrnonn.Whether the Ettern and Edeyrn of British examples in thediminutive, like Adamnan, or Eddarnon like the IrishEdarscal, I do not take on me to pronounce. The name ofEddarrnonn is found also on the Brodie Stone in Elginshire.The same name in the modified form of Iturnan and Ithurnanoccurs in the Irish annals at the years 665 and 669 in connectionwith Pictland. A further proofis afforded by the factthat traces of the ordinary sign of filiation are found in theinscription itself next after the characters in question. Thereis, first, a lacuna affording room for m and a vowel, followedby qi. But, unless this i be treated as an " iterate " or elsebe appropriated to the beginning of a succeeding vocable,nothing intelligible, so far as I can see, will emerge from theremaining groups. Accepting the q, however, as terminatingmiq or meq, the i will ally itself with what follows in a notunlikely sequence, disclosing something which, in this view,would appear to be a Pictish matronymicSTF&c.or, dividing the words, and accepting the forces for theuncertain characters most agreeable to their contextsEddarrnonn meq ingen Rrunurborh,that is, Eddarnon son of the daughter [lady] Runurborh.Eddarnon must be deemed a personage of note to have hadhis name inscribed on two out of the six Ogham monuments

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 143of Pictland, and, from the fact of both bearing symbolical SCOTLAND.sculpture, may be well supposed to have been an ecclesiastic.The legend appears to be continued on the opposite edge ofthe slab. Here, also, the characters are much confused byweather erosions, and present many perplexing alternatives&c. AC T&c.But for the apparentttpreceding olt\nban, there would beno question that the Eddarnon of the monument is herebrought into contact with a Columbanus ;and there is nodoubt that the Colman or Columbanus of the Paschal controversy,A.D. 664, was the contemporary of the Ithurnan of theannals. Our judgment in this difficulty may be legitimatelyinfluenced by the consideration that the division of thequestionable digits into groups of two and four, instead ofthree and three, appears necessary to complete not only theinitial of the name which follows, but also the termination ofthe word which precedes, viz., Egnnuqqdig and ; this, if it beassimilable to its seeming Celtic equivalent Ecnecdach, musthave an ending corresponding to dach, of which d and tare already ascertained." " Ecnecdach may be rendered" " antagonist," expulsor." If it is rightly supposed to berepresented by the barbaric Egnnuqqdig of the inscription, itis plain that Eddarrnonn is here shown in relations of antagonismto some Columbanus, importing one date for both.But the Columbanus of contentious repute in Scottish historyis he of Lindisfarne, whence we may infer with some measureof assurance that the Ithurnan and Columbanus of the Annalsare none other than the Eddarnan and Columban of the Brodiemonument.A second set of Oghams formerly existed on the crosssignedface of the Brodie stone. The only portionof thesenow in any degree legible is on the lower right-hand margin.It has a definite termination at top. Read from belowupward, it yields nothing pronounceable. Read downwardnormally, it yields vocables commencing osf, suggesting somesuch proper name as Osfric, but complicated by what seems

144 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSSCOTLAND. a t after /.Read downward from the opposite side, thecharacters yield an equally unpronounceable but also Anglo-Saxon-like name, followed by what looks very like a designationof nationalityOCTFR^ANGLA.aIn whatever way it may be regarded, the Anglo-Saxonelement seems to be present, and lends additional force to theconsiderations which have already associated these Scottishmemorials with reminiscences of the Council of Whitby.Whatever is known in British history respecting theCouncil of Whitbyis derived from the third Book of Beda.From his statements itmay be collected that in the time ofFinan, the successor of Aidan and predecessor of Colman inthe See of Lindisfarne, questions had been raised respectingthe Columban or northern Irish paschal practice by Ronan, asouthern Irish monk. Colman, who had been deputed fromlona to preach to the English, succeeding Finan, found himselfexposed to the same charges of heterodoxy by otherassailants, led by Wilfrid, the domestic chaplain of KingOswy, and tutor of his son Alchfrid. To settle these disputes,Oswy convened both parties at the monastic house of St.Hilda, and, on debate of the matter, gave judgment againstColman. Thereupon Colman, " finding his doctrine repudiatedand his sect contemned," set sail from Lindisfarne, takingwith him the remnant of the Irish there, as well as thirtyEnglish adherents, and some relics also of Saint Aidan, andproceeded by way of lona to Inisbofin, on the west coast ofIreland, whence, owing to differences among his followers, hewithdrew with his English disciples to the mainland, wherehe founded the monastery of Mayo for them and theircountrymen, and afterwards retiring to the " insula vaccasalbse," died there, as we learn from the Annals of Ulster,which throughoutcall him Columbanus, A.D. 675. Beda,who names some of the synodical assembly, has no mentionof any Iturnan, but names an Agatho who came on the partof Wilfrid. The withdrawal of Colman may well have beenregarded as an expulsion by those of the opposite party and;

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 145if we now find an Eddarnon of Anglo-Saxon associations SCOTLAND.commemorated as one of his expellers, there will be nothingrepugnant to the historical facts hitherto known to us. Thenotice of Iturnan's and another's death in the annals"Iturnan [Ithurnan] et Corinda [Corendu, Corenda] apudPictones [Pictons] defuncti sunt "may perhaps indicate thattheir parts in public affairs entitling them to historic mentionhad been played elsewhere than in Pictland. However thismay be, it cannot be doubted that a memorial of anyoneconcerned against Colman in the Paschal controversy, A.D.664, bearing the symbols peculiar to the sculpturedstones ofPictland, would give rise to considerations of very greathistorical interest. For, a century from the time of the Pictish.conversion by Columba must appear a surprisingly short timefor the growth, not only of a non-Columban system ofreligious symbols, but of an anti-Columban ecclesiasticism, ifthese, were not survivals of some form of pre-ColumbanChristianity in Pictland.218. The mystical chase, however, is but one of a greatnumber of lapidary devices of an extraordinary kind whichoccur as well on Ogham as on other stone monuments throughoutthe old Pictish part of Scotland. Some of them havebeen incidentally referred to, but any attempt to read inscriptionsso accompanied would be imperfect without a moreextended notice of them ;and therefore, though I do not expectto bend the bow of Ulysses so as to send the arrow through allthe rings, I shall endeavour to some extent to place beforeyou the material for forming an opinion as to the meaning ofthese singular objects.219. Dr. Joseph Anderson, of Edinburgh, has the distinctionof having demonstrated the Christian character of several ofthese monuments independently of the crosses engraved onthem. A cross, indeed, does not absolutely and of necessaryinference show a monument to be Christian. There are, nodoubt, Pagan crosses of various forms, from the Filfot orSwastica found by Schliemann on objects of old Trojan ware,to the Greek rectangular cross of equal arms found under theboundary mounds of the Roman agrimensores. But thegeneral presumption in favour of the Christian symbol being

146 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSSCOTLAND. of Christian times is so strong, that one cannot but thinkthose antiquaries over fastidious who decline to accept itsevidence on the monuments of an ancient Christian country,because it isaccompanied by unexplained forms of animalsand other devices of crescent moons, circles, and sceptres,with which Dr. Stuart in his magnificent work has made thelearned world familiar.220. These objects accompany the cross on several monumentsof this class, which Dr. Anderson has demonstrated tobe Christian by comparing one of their sculptured featureswith the Jonah and Whale of the Catacombs, and of mediaevalmetal work. He has also identified other objects on the samemonuments with what may be called scenes in NaturalHistory, drawn from a peculiar kind of literature which still,I believe, rests in MS., in the Bestiaries of the later middleages. The Bestiaries are compendiums of such knowledge inzoology and other branches of biological science as wascurrent among the educated classes from the early Christiantimes down to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was akind of reading aiming at entertainment and piety as well asinstruction. Many of the creatures described and picturedare fabulous and chimerical in form and ; many of the storiestold of the non-fabulous ones are more designed for doctrinaland moral than scientific application. The lioness bringsforth her cubs dead, till the lion, on the third day, breathes onthem and so calls them to life. The tigress,when the hunterhas stolen her cub, isstopped in her pursuit of him by a glassball which he throws in her path, and in which seeing herown diminished image, she fancies she has her cub again,and stops to fondle it till the hunter makes his escape. Boththese scenes Dr. Anderson has strong ground for claiming tohave found on Scottish sculptured monuments of the class inquestion; and has, so far, advanced the growing proof oftheir Christian and not very ancient character.221, I propose to carry the proofs farther, and to placebefore you some evidences on which, I do not doubt, youwill conclude the entirely Christian nature of all these objects,and possibly the particular significance of some of them. I shallbegin with the animal figures, and, with Dr. Anderson, take

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 147my first examples from the Catacombs. Here, we readily SCOTLAND.recognise our Lord in the Good Shepherd, and the PipingShepherd. Equally obvious is the symbolism of our Lord inthe character of Orpheus taming the rude nature of man bythe harmonies of the divine message. From the classicallyattiredOrpheus of the tomb of St. Calixtus, with his sevenstringedlyre and attendant audience of the beasts of thefield, to the unclothed human figure which is next presentedfrom the western facade of the Cathedral of Ferrara, playingon his violin, there is a wide diversity in taste and inreverentness of technical treatment and expression, but not inmeaning, as is evidenced by the animal attendants and theirattitudes of submission and pleasure. I might cite otherexamples, especially those figures of the Piping Shepherd,and the Orpheus on the great cross of Clonmacnois, but, forthe deeper symbolisms of the Scottish sculptures, it is necessaryto go several steps farther. The figures, so far,are human, but we must be prepared to look withoutastonishment on other forms of the same idea. On the pulpitof San Ambrogio's, at Milan, a tenth-century work, are seenamong other highly mystical devices, representations of alion and a lamb respectively playing on triangular harps,with their several animal attendants. Were the analogies tostop here, there would be little hesitation in recognising theLion of the tribe of Judah, and the Lamb that takes awaythe sin of the world, engaged in the same Orphic reformationof the brutish element in our nature. But the allegoryis carried on through further disguises, partly mere animal ;such as the bear which plays on the Celtic harp over one ofthe transept windows at Chartres, with other forms still morederogatory to the subject in manuscript and printed books ;and partly composite animal and human, of which latterclass is the Centaur from the porch of the Cathedral of St.Zeno, at Verona, playing on a square lyre and accompaniedby the usual attendant. The next example, even more instructivefor the purposes of our immediate inquiry, taken fromthe exterior of the south transept of the Cathedral of Genoa,shows an equine figure playing the same part in preciselya similar scene, but with some differences worthy of closer

148 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSSCOTLAND. notice. The side of the creature is rent, as are the sides ofthe victims which may be seen in the paws of the lions atmost of the cathedral doorways in North Italy, and its forefeet, with which it touches the strings of the instrument, arenot solidungular but divided. An example of the same heterogeneousmixture of animal varieties may be seen in an AgnusDei of so late a date as the sixteenth century in the cloister ofthe University of Pavia. It is ovine in all its traits, save itsleonine tail and clawed feet. The tail, indeed, in all thesemystical animal forms is conventionalised, and gives noticethat something esoteric and Christian is hidden under thebarbarous outlines.222. The digital feet unite these latter examples withother symbolisms carrying us another step nearer the Scottishsculptures, through a connection for which it is necessaryto resort to the early Christian monuments of Scandinavia.Here also are found digital-footed equine figures whose outlines,treated in a manner peculiar, so far as I know, to Norseand Picto-Scottish monuments, show a general relationbetween the schools of sculpture and a resemblance almostamounting to identity between part of the Norse compositionand one of the more peculiar Scottish emblems. The figuresreferred to are found at three several localities in Sweden,and may be seen engraved in Stephens's " Runic Monuments."Their singularities consist, first, in curved prolongations ofthe upper outlines of the limbs, producing spiralsand volutesover the body. These spirals are found similarly situatedon the symbolic animals forming the interlaced ornamentationof the Moneymusk reliquary, and are familiar to oureyes in great numbers of the Scottish and Irish lapidarysculptures.I would, next, instance the re-entrant anddivergent curves of the outlines, quite in the manner ofwhat is known as the Celtic trumpet pattern. This patternpervades Celtic ecclesiastical decorative work, and is conspicuouson some examples of what is known as the*envelope ' object on the Scottish inscribed stones. Of itsecclesiastical use I would suppose there can be no doubt, andthat most probablyit is meant for a satchel or book-cover.Let us now observe the curled and convoluted outlines of the

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 149head and jaws, and compare these with the curled and flori- SCOTLAND.ated outlines of the Nome's Law symbol, as seen in its conventionalisedreproductions on the Scottish incised stones.It must be owned that the latter bears an extraordinary likenessto the neck and head of the Swedish symbol. Why aportion only of the figure should be adopted into the Scottishemblematical technology, I am in no position to explain, buta glance into that storehouse of mystical learning lately producedby the Benedictines at Solesme, in Normandy, the" Spicilegium Solesmense," serves to show the mediaeval ideaAt No. 767 of Theodulfsunderlying the entire equine series.Recensio of the Clavis of Melito (a species of concordance tothe figurative language of Scripture) is the " entry, Equus,corpus Domini," so that it may be predicated with considerableconfidence of this floriated Norrie's Law object on theScottish sculptures that it is Christian, symbolical, andeucharistic.223. In one of the Scottish figures, that of the elephant,the terminal convolutions, which in the Swedish symboliccreature are confined to the face and jaw, are extended to allthe extremities. The Clavis ascribes no special meaning tothe elephant but in the Bestiaries it is treated as the;emblem ofChastity. Whether it be a type merely of a particular virtue,and so referable to the Mother of our Lord, or be a symbolhaving a more universal meaning, this device of the transfiguratedelephant has associations apparently carrying backits use in Scotland, where alone it has been found, into theage of urn-burial and of the use of bronze weapons. It isengraved on a stone said to have been found above thecovering-stone of a kist which enclosed an urn and bronzedagger, at Carngrig, Forfarshire. (Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot.,15th Feb., 1865.) It has also been found among workspresumably of the Roman period. That it was always ofChristian import, I myself am strongly persuaded ;and if itbe so, it carries back Christianity in Scotland to a surprisinglyearly date, and tends powerfully to set up the old traditionsof Boece and Fordun. Its curled extremities show that thetaste which has disguised the outline ol the Swedish symbolicequine figures in similar convolutions was of vastly older

150 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSSCOTLAND.prevalence in North Britain, and goes almost the whole wayin displacing the idea that the Scoto-Pictish carvings are ofScandinavian origin. How, then, it will be said, can this bedeemed a ninth or tenth century symbol in those monumentswhere we have found itaccompanied by Oghams seeminglyof so late a period? The answer must be found in thepersistence of types, and I would imagine the nursery of thetype must be looked for in Byzantine symbolography.224. In this connexion, let me observe that an earlierChristianity than that usually accorded to the Picts is stronglyargued by the language of St. Patrick in his epistle toCoroticus, where he reproaches the Picts with having becomeapostate while a Roman municipal and military establishmentwhich could hardly have beenstill subsisted at Strathclyde,after A.D. 410, when the Romans took their final departurefrom Britain. It is true this would put the date of Patrick,the son of Calphurn, before the mission of Palladius ;butmany arguments for that position may be drawn from thedocuments preserved in the Book of Armagh and from theCoroticus Epistle. Not the least cogent of these, in my mind,is the absence from Patrick's authentic writings of any referenceto a predecessor in the missionary field, while his statementthat in the scene of his own labours the want that hadbeen experienced was a want of regular ministers of religion,implies that there were already everywhere believers to beserved.225, I shall now seek the meaning of another animal formof occasional occurrence on the Scottish monuments, in whatmust always be the chief source of knowledge in Christiansymbolism the objects themselves seen in actual ecclesiasticalsculpture. It is the seemingly canine creature found notablyon the Bressay and Golspie stones, and alsothe decorated cross at DrumclifTe in Ireland.conspicuous onOn the westernportal of St. Apollinaris at Trent, but not of an antiquityequalling that of the building, is a boldly-executed figure ofa composite creature, in which we do not hesitate torecognise Him of whom it is said, " Thou shalt tread uponthe lion and adder : the young lion and the dragon shaltthou trample under feet." The cherubic disguise at St.

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 151Apollinaris, is exchanged for another presentation of the same SCOTLAND.Being at the porch of St. Bolzen, where the walker on thedragon is figured in the canine form. Under the same derogatorydisguise the same allegory occurs again at the easterndoor of Trent Cathedral. We are shocked at the irreverenceof this kind of religion, but compelled to give it the meaningwhich Scripture supplies. Three of these creatures appear onthe Bressay monument, one single,and on the opposite sidetwo breathing as it were into one another's open jaws, and,between them, exhaling a something represented by a circulardisk.226. Not pausing here to speculate on the meaning,further than to say that the associated figures show it, ifsignificant, to be symbolical and Christian, I may nowapproach the consideration of the Golspie monument, wherethe canine creature occurs in company not only with most ofthe peculiar emblematic devices of Picto-Scottish sculpture,but with a human figure engaged in significant action inrelation to it. At top the monument presents the objectknown as the envelope ;below it the elephant ;below these,at one side, the human figure ;at the other, three objects,namely, this canine creature voluted like the ScandinavianNorse emblems ;below it the emblematic fish ;below the fishthe object I have designated the Nome's Law symbol. Ina triad of emblems, the central one of which is the Ix6v

152 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONSSCOTLAND. Further difficulty arises from the contrariety of slope givento digits seemingly belonging to the same categories. Butwhen, undeterred by these confusions, one applies the ordinarykey to the digits according to their position over, under,or across the central part of the field, accepting the verticaldigits as vocalic, some Celtic words do indeed seem to shapethemselves out of these elements having a real relation to thesculptured subject. One of these appears to be intended forai/roin, the Mass. This adaptation of the offerendum or oblatioof the Latins is the universal insular Celtic equivalent for theeucharistic offering. If it be here intended, it is presented inthe form aiffhrrenn.The word, at its commencement, is definedby a point separating it from the immediately precedingvocables. These appear to express ac a tan, "at his tan."Tan, that is, "plunder," "plundering expedition," a " driving,"or " raid," as in the Tain bo Cuailnge, the Tain bo Dartada, &c.Who, then, is he whom we have these reasons to regard asbeing thus shown at his Mass raid ? It certainly gives renewedcorroboration to MacCurtin's statement about writing theon their monumentsevil deeds of men in difficultOghamsthat almost all the devices for obscuring this legend areemployed in the earlier part of it, containing the name whichshould answer that question. It begins with the characterto which, in the Lunnasting example, we have ascribed thepower of s, and it ends with eadda ;but further I am unableto lift the veil, unless I were to resort to assumptions andconjectures for which I am not at present prepared.Still it will admit of question, even supposing that I haverightly interpreted both symbols and legend, whether thecommemoration iscondemnatory. It was one of the pedantriesof Irish ecclesiastical writers to " use the technicallanguage of plundering for the expression of religious sentiment"(Stokes, Fel., Feb. 17th, Miscel. Celt. Soc., 338), andone of the few passages in which the author of the Felirerises into imaginative exaltation is that at May 17th, in whichhe treats three saints " as if they were three Irish chieftainsmaking a raid in their war-chariots into heaven " (ib.).Hecelebrates" The hosting (sluagad) of Adrio, of Victor, of Basil :they unyokedwithout a whit of weakness on a height of Heaven's Kingdom."

IN IRELAND, WALES, AND SCOTLAND. 153So here the knife and hatchet may but signify the urgency SCOTLAND.and frequency of the oblation by a worshipper bent onwinning heaven by assault. But, had this been the truemeaning, less pains would probably have been taken in disguisingthe name of the offerer.227. The remaining objects comprise two which occur veryfrequently and conspicuously on these Picto-Scottish monuments.Below the triad, the sceptre-traversed crescent, andthe object known as the " spectacle ornament."If we applythe rule noscitur a sociis, we must infer them to be symbolicaland Christian ;and from what has been seen of the tri-radialincline to allow thatdevice in Welsh symbolism, we maythe tri-sceptral one of the Scottish monuments has alsorelation to the same mystery of the Godhead. This symbolin a bi-sceptral form traverses the crescent ;in a tri-sceptralform, the other emblem, whatever itmay signify. I imaginethe meaning of both may be inferred from the symbolicinterpretation of luna in the Clavis, " Luna, Maria Virgo"(" Spicileg.," vol. ii., p. 66), because of her increase in theIncarnation. It is difficult with due reverence to treat thissubject in words as fully as our forefathers have treated it intheir carved emblems. Many of those, especially in Ireland,are greatly coarser in their methods of expression than theseScottish examples, -but all of them appearto relate to thathuman condition to which our Lord condescended when Hetook upon Him to deliver man.228. Looking back, now, on the entire subject, thereappear to be two questions of primary importance for thehistorian and philologist: Is this method of writing, of Paganor of Christian origin ? and, Is the language in which thesenames and formulas are expressed a quasi hieratic dialect,not trammelled by the ordinary laws of Celtic speech, or is itthe vernacular language of those who carved the inscriptions? No treatment of the first question is likely to besatisfactory which does not fully investigate that class ofquasi Oghams and pseudo Oghams of which I have spoken asabounding in the South of Ireland, as well as all the remainsof inscriptionalfiguring on the Pagan sepulchral monumentsof the Boyne and Slieve-na-Calliagh districts. As regards

154 OGHAM INSCRIPTIONS.SCOTLAND. the second, I am content to leave it in the hands of thosewho have made the philosophy of language their study,claiming only the credit of having supplied their researcheswith approximately authentic data in the texts I havepresented.

INDEX TO OGHAM LEGENDS.

156 INDEX TO OGHAM LEGENDS.Par. No.

INDEX TO OGHAM LEGENDS. 157Par. No.Page197 Fanoni Maquirini Fardel stone British Museum 117198 Humeledonas, &c. ... ... ... Llandawke Pembrokeshire 118199 Cunacenna fiil fleto Trallong Brecon 119200 Doftacoos Dugoed Cardiganshire 119201 Am boci beffe ... Llanwinio, Middleton Hall,near Llandeilo 120202 Catuocon, &c. Caldey Island Pembrokeshire 120203 Netta Sagri, &c Bridell stone Cardiganshire 121204 Pumpeius Carantorius Kenfigg stone,Pyle Glamorganshire 122205 Maqitrenii salicidui ... Llywell stone British Museum 124CHAPTEB VII.210 ttuicuheatts seahhttannn, &c. ... Lunnasting Shetland 134211 esmeqqnann ammoffest ... St. Ninian's 134212 ccrroscc nahhlffddadds dattrr an ...Bressay 135213 rrann uurract thetts ccrroccs ... Burrian Orkney 136214 udd mq quinsn fotrennq regs gist, &c. Newton stone Aberdeenshire 138215 Togtuch, &c. ... ... ... Logie ring-Ogham 139216 Maqqoi talluorrh ;Neahhtla robbaitCeanneff Aboyne 13917 Eddarruonn ... ... ... Scoonie stone Fifeshire 342217 Eddarrnonn meq ingen Erunurborh, &c. Brodie stone Elginshire 142226 ac a tan aiffhrreun Golspie stone Sutherland 152

INDEX.Armagh, 56, 64Abban, St., 72, 73, 74Aberdeen, 134, 137, 139Aboyne, 139Abraham, sacrifice of, 141Adamnan, 61, 77, 142Adare, 51, 103, 109jEngus, Felire of, 34, 77, 93,152Agatho, 144Aghabulloge, .92, 93, 95, 119Aghacarrible, 26, 27, 29Aghaliskey, 100Aghascribba, 60, 61Aglish, 25, 26, 33, 37, 85Ayrshire, 65 B.Aidan, St., 144Ailbe, St., IllAilill, 56Ainmire, 132Alba, 55, 128Alchfrid, 144Alphabet, Bethluisnion, 5Cryptic Tree-Runes, 2,4, 62, 64Forfeada, 5Futhorc or Scandinavian,2, 5, 6Ogham, 4, 11, 12, 29,33, 44, 64, 66, 82, 96, 97,122, 126, 131, 132, 133,134, 151Roman, 137Runic, 2, 62, 97, 99,109, 139Stone, Kilmalkedar, 55Alphabetic writing, 109Amalgaid (see Auley)Amra Coluimkille, 139Anderson, Dr. Joseph, 145,146Anglesea, 103Anglo-Saxon, 130, 144, 145Anglo-Saxon coins, 46Annascaul, 19, 23, 49Antrim, 28Apollinaris, St., church of,150, 151Ardagh, 67Ardmore, 9, 10, 78, 83, 84Ardywanig, 110 Bellerophon, 55Benir, 135Armorica, 131Arraglen, 48, 49Arthur, King, 72Astle, Mr., 9, 12Atkinson, Mr., 16, 76, 84Attacottic rebellion, 62Augher, 61Augustus, 56Augustine, St,, 132Auley, 59Auxerre, St. German, Bishopof, 98Ballina, 76Ballinacourty, 23Ballinahunt, 21, 22, 23, 45Ballinrobe, 54Ballintaggart, 31, 34, 36,43, 93Balliiitarmon, 23Ballinvoher, 20, 23Ballybay, 64Ballyboodan, 76Ballyclough, 88Ballycrovane, 102Ballyhank, 96, 98Ballymote, Book of, 11, 134Ballyneanig, 42Ballynesturig, 120Ballyquin, 9, 10, 15, 76Ballyshannon, 59Ballyvooney, 77Ballyvourney, 101, 102Ballywiheen, 39Bandon, 95, 99, 100, 101Bani, 61,62, 63, 67,84Bantry, 102Bards, 132Barddas, 125, 126Barrachauran, 91Barrow, river, 51Barry, Rev. E., 84Bealaghamire, 87Beaufort Bridge, 107, 108Beda, 144Bestiaries, 146, 149Bi-lingual Ogham - inscribedmonuments, Caldey Island,120Clydai, 116, 121Cwm Gloyn, 114Dugoed, 119, 121Fardel stone, 117Kenfigg stone, 122Laugher, 113Llaudawke, 118Llanfechan, 115, 116Llanwinio stone, 111)Llywell stone, 123Pool Park, 117St. Dogmael's, 115Tavistock, 117Trallong, 118Treffgarn, 114, 115Usk Park, 114Blackwater, river, 61, 65, 85,86, 88, 92, 95Blair's Hill, 101Blanaid, 49Bodoney, 61Boece, 149Boggra mountains, 92Boithin, St., 107Bolzen, St., 151Bonan, St., 108Bone objects, ornamentationon, 66Bovevagh, 61Boydafea, 61Boyle, 56, 58Boyne monuments, 62, 65, 66,153Brackloon, 23Brandon mountain, 7, 19, 42,48,49Brash, Mr., 13, 16, 21, 23, 24,26, 28, 37, 42, 45, 51, 79,80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87,88,95, 99, 300, 101, 102,103, 104, 105, 109, 122Breastagh, 58Breconshire, 114, 1 18, 124,125Brehon Laws, 52, 79, 89Brendan, St., 36, 48, 49, 99

INDEX. 159Bressay stone, 14, 134, 135,150Brew Bridge, 88Bridell stone, 121Brigid, St., 132British church, 21, 132British origin of Oghamwriting, 131British princes, 97Brittany, 131monuments of, G2, 64,131Brodie stone, 142, 143Bruscos, 9, 30Buckland Monachorum, 117Burchett, Mr., 31Buruham House, 37, 43, 44Burntfort, S7Burrian stone, 135, 136Bweeng, 88Byzantine symbolography, 150C.Caber, 104Cahirciveen, 104Cahir Conree, 20, 49, 58, 111Cahir-na-gat, 39, 75Cairbre Musn, 128Caldey Island, 120Calixtus, St., tomb of, 147Callan, 52, 54Calphurn, father of St. Patrick,29Camp, 49, 89Cappagh, 103Cappoquin, 86Carausius, 53Cardigan, 115, 116, 121Carleton, Mr. W., 61Carlow, 74Carmarthenshire, 115, 119, 123Carngrig, 149Carra lough, 105Carrick-on-Suir, 76CasMederg, 00, 64Castlegregory, 49Castlemaine, 19, 20, 109, 110,111Castlereagh, 56Castletimou, 68Casts, paper, 17, 31Catacombs, 29, 47, 146, 147Cattin, 34Cavan, 62Caves with Ogham-nscribedstonesAghacarrible, 26, 27, 29Aghaliskey, 100Burntfort, 87Cooldorrihy, 101Caves, Drumlohau, 78, 82, Coilsford stone, 6592,98Coirbre, 59Dunloe, 10, 107Glenawillen, 86Keel, 111Knockboy, 87Laharan, 109Monataggart, 7, 88Eathcoolnamuck, 76Eathcroghan, 57Kathmalode, 20Iloovesmore, 20, 21,98Tinnalially, 109Ceallagh, 59Cealluragh (see Killeen)Celtic decorative work, 148Cennloc, 40Chartres cathedral, 147Christ as the Good Shepherd,147as the Piping Shepherd,147as Orpheus, 147Christian cell, 91Christian character of Oghaminscriptions, 111, 118, 127monuments, 145Christian symbolism, 150Christianity, pre-Columban, inScotland, 137, 145Church, Breton, 137Celtic, 140Columban, 54, 136,144Coptic, 35Early British, 21, 132Irish, 132Llaufair Waterdine,137Palladian, 69, 84Patrician, 54, 64pre-Patriciau, 111Church Island, 59Chute Hall, 43Ciaran, St., IllCilgerran, 116Cill-Vickallane, 45Clare, 51Claragh, 75Clogher, 61Clonfert, 36Clonmacnois, 54, 55, 147Clonsharagh, 48, 49Clossagh, the, 61, 62Cloghane, 48Cloyne, 86Clydai, 116, 121Clyda river, 88Coachford, 88D.Cobbinstown, 70Cogitosus, 13,2Colgan, 84Colman, 38, 144, 145Colman Bocht, 54, 55Colomb, 38, 39, 40, 43Columba (see Columbkille)Columbauus, 143Columbkille, 23, 77, 139, 145Commeragh mountains, 76, 85Conaire, 128Conall Carnach, 56Conan Maoil, 53, 54Concani, 119Cong, 54Connaught, 56Conor Mac Nessa, 39, 56Cooldorrihy, 101Coomliah, 102Core, 55Corkaboy, 111Corkaguiny, 19, 34, 39, 47,49, 51, 68Cork, 8, 20, 28, 86, 95Cork Athenaeum, 87Cormac's Glossary, 34, 93,127, 128, 129Cormac,72, 73, 93, 130Cornwall, 123Coroticus, 150Corpmac, 119Corrody, 64Crickhowel, 114, 118Criffan, son ofFidach, 127, 128Cromlech, 60, 64, 76Cross -inscribed stones, 13, 15,21,22, 23, 24, 25, 29, 32,36, 37, 40, 48, 50, 64, 74,101, 104, 105, 111, 116,118, 119, 120, 121, 124,134, 136, 137, 143Crosses sometimes Pagan, 145Cruimthir, 34, 48, 127, 129Cuach, St., 73Cuchulain, 23, 49, 56Cucorb, 72, 73, 74Culfeightrim, 28Cumbria, 130Cummin Foda, 50Cunedda, 129, 130Curcitt, 35Curoi Mac Dara, 49Curraghmore, 76Currane, lough, 104Cwm Gloyn, 114Cymric invasion, 129, 130Dalian Forgaill, 139David's, St., 129

160 INDEX.Davidstown, 70Deagad, 103Declan, St., 83, 84,111Deelish, 94Deer, Book of, 139Derry, 64, 136Derrygurrane, 104Desi, 84Desibode, 132Devon, 103, 117Dingle, 19, 30, 31,36,37Disert Ulad, 93Dofet, 34Domnach Arda, 69Donard, 69Donegal, 64, 70Donoughmore, parish of, 7,88,92Doolan bay, 54Down, Connor, and Dromore,Bishop of, 28, 64Dripsey, river, 88, 91Dromatouk, 103Dromkeare, 104Dromod, 104Dromore, 85Druids, 70, 71Drumcliffe sculptured cross,150Drumlohan, 78, 82, 92, 98Dubric, 127Duf'tac, son of Evoleng, 119Duftac Macculugar, 71,72,73Dugoed, 119, 121Duil Laithne, 38Dunbarton, birthplace of St.Patrick, 129Dunbell, 61, 75, 117Dunbulloge, 87Dunfinne, 59Dunganstown, 68Dungarvan, 81, 82, 83, 84Dunlavin, 70Dunloe, 10, 107Dunmore, 40, 42, 98Du Noyer, Mr.G., 15, 51, 109Duuraven, Earl of, 51, 109Durrow, 136 E.Eastern liturgies, 35Eddarnon, 142, 143, 145Eglish, 98Egyptians in Ireland, 35, 93Elginshire, 142Emania, 56, 64Emlagh, 36England, 15Ennis, 52Eobba,-97Eochaid, 34Eochaid Argthec, 22Eochy Eachbeol, 49Kolang (see Olan)Krne, lough, 59Kternalis, 1 1 6Exmoor, 117 F.Gormlee, 87Fagan, 127Fahan, " city of," 46Fardel stone, 1 1 7Faustus, St., 97Felimy Rechtmar, 61, 72, 84Felire (see jEngus)Ferdiad, 23, 56Feredach, 55Fergus, 51Fermanagh, 59Ferrara : its cathedral withsymbolic sculpture, 147Fiachra, 59Fiersad Tresi, 59Fifeshire, 134, 139, 140Finan, St., 144Finbarr. St., 93Finglass, river, 105Fintan, 37, 40Fishguard, 115Flavius Victor, 116Flintshire, 124lar, 54Focluth, wood of, 58Fordun, 149Forfeada, 5Forfarshire, 149Foyle, lough, 61Freoc, 57 G.Gallerus, 46Galloway, 137Galtee mountains, 57, 86Galway, 54Garioch, 137Garranes, 99Gavr-inis monument, 62Genoa : its cathedral, 147German, St., 97, 98Gildas, 132Gillamurras, 44, 97Gill, lough, 59Glamorganshire, 113, 122Glasheen Cockmuck stream,106Glenawillan, 86Glencolumkill, 70Glendalough, 69, 72Glossary (see Cormac's)Glounaglogh, 95Golspie stone, 139, 150, 151Gortmacaree, 51, 103Gortnegullanagh, 24, 35, 44Gowran, 74Grange, 84Graves, Dr. Charles (seeLimerick, Bishop of )Graves, Rev. J., 75Greek cross, 145Greeks in Ireland, 35Greise, river, 72Greenhill, 88Gusact, 67H.Haigh, Rev.D., 15, 21, 48, 96,97,98,99, 110, 116, 120Hayle inscription, 123Herbert, Hon. A., 21, 132Heresy, Neo-Druidic, 132Hilda, St., 144Hildegard, St., 132Hitchcock, Mr. R., 15, 67Hook Point, 25Horgan,Rev. M., 13Hy-Cormaic, 72, 73Hy-Lugair, 72, 73, 74I.Ibar, St., 84, 111Iceland, 135, 137Ictian sea, 128Indulf, 139Inisbofin, 144Innercolan, 139Innisfallen, annals of, 52Inniskeen, 48Invasions, Book of, 01,99, 130lona, 136, 139, 144Ireland, 18, 97Irish annals, 142Irish and British connection,98, 103, 127, 129Irish ecclesiastical architecture,77Irish formulas on Welshstones, 129Irvinestown, 59Isidore, " origines of," 47Island, 78Island Mac Dara, 83Italy, symbolic inscriptions incathedrals, 148Iturnan, 142, 143, 144,145Ivybridge, 117 J.Jonah and the whale, 146

INDEX. 161K.Keel, 111Kenfigg stone, 122, 125, 132Kenmare, 102, 103, 104Kerry, 7, 9, 19, 28, 54, 07, 86,103Kevin, St., 69Kieran, St., 84Kilbonane, 108, 109, 125, 134Kilciishmore, 102Kilcolaght, 28, 105Kilcolman, 38Kilcullen, 91Kilcummin, 59Kildare, 69, 70, 103Kilfountain, 37, 45, 46Killgarrylander, 111Kilgarvan, 103Kilgobinet, 106Kilgrovan, 28, 81,82Kilkenny, 68, 74, 76, 117Killala, 58Killaney, 49Killarney, 19, 105Killeenadreena, 105Killeens, 27, 28, 29, 31, 35,37, 39, 40, 42, 46, 69, 70,72, 73, 78, 81,85,86, 94,95,100,103, 104, 105, 106Killeen Cormac, 69, 70, 71,72, 73, 90, 108Killfinte, 69Killogrone, 1 04Killorglin, 105, 109Kilmacthomas, 76, 77Kilmaine, 54Kilmalkedar, 37, 45, 46, 55Kilmaloda, 100Kilmichael, 101Kilmocamogue, 102Kilnaglory, 95Kilnanare, 110Kilrush, 83Kilshannig, 88Kiltera, 85, 109Kinard, 26, 29, 30, 32, 35, 40,46King's county, 54Knockastoolery, 54Knockboy, 87Knockfierna, 50Knock Many, 61, 66Knockmeldown mountains,51,86Knockouran, 101Knockrour, 94Knocktopher, 76L.Labraid, 73, 76Laharau, 109Lane-Fox, Colonel, 20, 27, 51,94, 98, 99Language of W. and S. Britain,129, 130Lapdog, first, in Ireland, storyof, 128, 129Latin aspect of Ogham writing,131Laugher, 113, 114Laune, river, 107, 108Leabhar-na-h-Uidhre, 22Le Blant, M. Kdmond, 43Lee, river, 87, 88, 92, 95Leinster, Book of, 23, 93Leinster, 72Leitrim, 59Lennau, 64Leslie, Colonel Forbes, 47Leth Cuin, 55Lhuyd, Mr., 9, 12Liads, 94Liathan, 127Liber Hymnorum, 45Library, Bodleian, 52British Museum, 5251Koyal Irish Academy,Trinity College, Dublin,38Limerick, Bishop of, 7, 14, 15,26, 35, 36, 50, 89, 99, 104,105, 107, 110, 122, 135Lindisfarne, 143, 144Lisdoonvarna, 54Lisgrenan -(see Grange)Lismore, 86Llandaff, Book of, 140Llandawke, 118Llandeilo, 19 1Llanfechan, 115Llywell stone, 123, 134Llanwinio, 119Lochlann, 55Locrin, 106Longarad, 23Logie stone, 139Lomanagh, 103, 105Longford, 59Lougharne, 118Loughcrew monuments, 125,126Lougher, 20, 21Lugaidh, 55Lugnagappul, 24Lunuasting, 8, 134, 152Mac Con, 128Mac Cm-tin, 44, 140, 152Mac Firbis, Dudley, 38Macgillicuddy, The, 106Keeks of, 50, 107Machera mountains, 95Maclise, 13MacMahon burial vault, 48Macroom, 101Maen Achwnfaen, 124Maeshow, 65Magheree islands, 49Magonihy, 50Magourney, 95Mallow, 87, 88Manchan (see St. Manchan)Mani-Nelud monument, 62Margam, 122Martin's" Memoir of theWestern Islands," 89Martramane, 49, 79Maumanorigh, 37, 38, 39, 44Maximus, 98, 131Mayo, 54, 58, 76Mayo, monastery of, 144Mearns, 140Meath, 62, 67Meave, 56, 58, 77Menevia, now St. David's, 129Merlin, 123, 132Middleton, 86Middleton Hall, 119Milan, church of San Ambrogio,147Milchu, 67Milesians, 66Milltown, 108, 109, 110Miltown Malbay, 52Minard, 24, 26Moinena, 36Mouaghan, 64Monataggart, 7, 88, 90Monavoullagh mountains (seeCommeragh)Moneymusk reliquary, 148Monmouthshire, 117Mosocra, 68Mostyn, 124Mount Music, 101, 105Mourne Abbey, 87Moy O'Conqin, 50Mug eime, the first lapdog inIreland, 128, 129Munster antiquaries, 10, 13,14, 15, 16Munster, 33, 55, 79, 103Munter Louey mountains, 60Mullaghnacross, 58Mulloch, 65Museum, Royal Cork Institution,86, 87, 88, 91,9495

Society of Antiquariesof Scotland, 8, 136Trinity College, Dublin,8 N.162 INDEX.Museum, Royal Irish Academy.7, 15, 20, 24, 25, 42, 49,67, 68, 84, 107Royal Historical andArchaeological Associationat Kilkenny, 75Ogham- Ballyhank, 96, 98Naddodd, 135Nancy, 46Nanmor, Davydd, 126Neagh, lough, 61Nechtan, 140Nennius, 33, 72, 127Nevern,114Newcastle-Kmlyn, 116 ,New Grange, 62, 65, 67Newton stone, 14Normandy, 149Nome's Law symbol, 149,151Norse bracteates, 46epitaphs, 80, 135monuments, 148, 151population, 135O.O'Donovan, Mr., 10, 64OTlanagan, Theophilus, 53Ugliain (bee Alphabet of)-carved on anises ofstanding stones, 6Cryptic, 74, 139Scholastic, 52, 54, 133(igbam-inecribed monumentsA boy ne, 139Adare, 51, 103, 109Aghabulloge, 92, 93,95,119-29Aghacarrible, 26, 27,Aghaliskey, 100Aghascribba, 60, 61Aglish, 25, 26, 33,37, 85Anuascaul, 23, 49Ardmore, 83, 84Ardywanig, 110Augber, 61Balliuabunt, 21, 22,2o, 45Ballintaggart, 31, 34,36, 43, 93Ballintaruion, 23Balliuvoher, 20, 23- Ball) boodan, 76Baltyciovaue, 102

.Tulligmore,INDEX. 163Ogham Tarbert, 51Tavistock, 1 17-Teeravona, 40Templeinanalian,9, 40Thinalially, 109Topped mountain, 69Trabeg, 9, 30, 31,36Trailing, 118Treflfearn, 11495Tulloherin, 75Tyvoria, 40, 67Usk Park, 114Olacon, 36Olan, St., 92, 93, 94, 119, 123,135Olchu, 36Oldcastle, 62Olden, Rev. T., 88Olnegmacht, 56Oratories, 83Ordnance Survey Memoir ofIreland, 10Orkney, 133, 136Oswy, 144Oxford, Professorship of Celtic,16P.Pagan monuments, 113, 114,124, 125, 126, 153Pagan places of burial, 46, 65,66, 126Palladian church, 84Palladius, 18, 69, 74, 94, 98,112, 129, 130, 150Pant-y-Cadno, 124Papee-thristian monks in Iceland,137Parknafulla, 24Pascent, 97, 98Paschal controversy, 143, 144,145Patrick, St., son of Calphurn,33, 34, 51, 58,67,71, 84,112, 128, 129, 130, 150Patrician Christianity, 33, 55,69, 110church, 55, 84, 86, 111-documents, 33Pavia, cloister of its University,148Pelham, Mr., 36Pembrokeshire, 114, 115, 118,119Petrie, Dr., 10, 39, 40, 45, 55,59, 77, 83Pictish Chronicle, 139Pictlaud, 139, 142, 143, 145Picto-Scottish charters, 139Museum89, 90, 96, 107, Suir, river, 5115, 20,Picto-Scottish sculpture, 133,R.I.A.,24,of, 7,25, 42, 49, 67, 68, 84137, 148, 150, 151, 153 Runes, 2, 80, 139Picts, 21, 150Ruthin, 117Piper's stone, 69Pomeroy, 60S.Pool Park, 117Salique Law of Graves, 47Pope Celestine, 18Portmaruock, 67Prim, Mr., 75Salter Bridge, 86Samson rending the lion, 141Scandinavia, 64, 148, 150, 151Ptolemy, 50, 56, 107, 119 Schliemann, Dr., 145Pumpeius Carantorius, 132 Scoonie, 139, 140, 142Pyle, 122 Scotland, 62, 133Scottish Oghams, 133, 134B.Sculptured monuments, 64,124, 134, 135, 141, 145,Raphoe, 61148, 149, 151, 153Rathban, 58Sepulchral cellos, 70, 83Rath-caves, 95, 100legends, 80Rathcoolnamuck, 76tumuli, 60, 62Kathcroghan, 56, 58, 104Rathduff, 23Rathgormuc, 76Sere, 59Seskinan, 85Shanacloon, 101Rathkeale, 50Shannon, river, 54, 56Rathmalodc, 20Shearman, Rev. J., 71, 73Raths, 20, 27, 81, 94Shetland, 14. 133, 134, 136Rea, Mr., IllSilures, 127Reeks (see Macgillicuddy) Skene, Mr., 139, 140Reeves, Rev. Dr. (see Down Cua, 112and Connor, Bishop of)Relig na-ree, 56Rhys, Professor, 16, 71Slieve-na-Calliagh, 62, 65,66,153Slieve Grada, 58Ring-Ogham, 139Slieve Mish, 19, 31, 49, 50,liock carvings, 126111Koman agrimensores, 89, 145altar with Ogham characters,113, 114letters, 114, 115, 120,Sligo, 58, 59Smerwick, 42Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,Museum, 8, 136124, 137Proceedings, 149customs, 88" SpicUegium Solesmense,"epigraphs, 70, 103, 149, 153114, 115, 117, 122, 132law, 129Staghunt, 140St. Declan (see Declan)period, 149Dogmael's, 14, 115Ronaldsay, North, island"of, Stephens's Runic Monuments,"135Ronan, St., 144Rooer's Bridge, 98148Manchan's, 10, 40, 46, 49,79Roovesmore, 20, 21, 98, 99 Stokes, Dr. Whitley, 38, 71,Roscommon, 5677, 152Ross-Krc, 59Stokes, Miss, 55Ross Hill, 54St. Olan (see Olan)Round Towers, 13, 83Stone coffin, St. Andrew's,Royal Cork Institution, 86, 141, 14287, 88, 91, 94, 95Royal Historical and ArchaeologicalStradbally, 77, 78Strathclyde, 130, 137, 150Association, Kil-Stuart, Dr., author of " Sculp-kenny, 75, 76tured Stones of Scotland,"Royal Irish Academy, 7, 49, 146

164 INDEX.Sutherland, 134, 139Swastica or Filfot cross, 145Swedish symbols, 149T.Tain-bo Cuailnge, 56Taliesin, 126Tallin (Telltown), 65Tarbert, 50, 5 1Tavistock Kectory, stonebrought from RoboroughDown, 117Tech-na-Romanagh, 69Teeravoria, 40Teivy, river, 116Templemanahan, 9, 40Templemartin, 99Templenacariga, 86, 87Templenoe, 104Tenby, 120Teuthal Techtmar, 6 1 ,62Theodulfs " Recensio of the< 'lavis of Melito," 149Theodoric, 141Tigroney, 69Tipperary, 76Todd, Rev. Dr., 84Topped mountain, 59Trabeg, 9,30, 31,36Tralee, 19Trallong, 118Trecastle, 124Treffgarn, 114Trengas, 116Trent Cathedral, 150,151Tresi, 59Trinity College, Dublin, 38Trinity, symbol of, 123, 125Trojan ware, 145Tuatha de Danaan, 5, 66Tulliermore, 95Tulloherin, 75Tullycorbet, 64Tyrone, 59, 60, 67Tyvoria, 40, 67 U.Ulster, annals of, 144Plantation of 60