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

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-