Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, <Sfc. 327 



inscriptions on this stone commemorate two persons, and should be read as 



follows : 



ORO1C t)O CONQ1H5 HldC CON^liaiC." 



" OROIC t)o DU6C6N mac chaD^^dR" 



" A PBAYEE FOE CONAING, SON OF CONGAL." 

 " A PEAYEE FOE DUBCEN, SON OF TADGGAN." 



I have not been able to find in the Irish Annals an entry of the death of 

 Dubcen, the son of Tadgan, whose name occurs in the second of these inscrip- 

 tions, nor of his father, Tadgan ; but the periods at which they flourished may 

 be determined with tolerable accuracy from the records of the deaths of Agda, 

 the son of Dubcen, prince of Teffia, who, it is stated in the Annals of the Four 

 Masters, died in the chair of St. Kieran, after having spent a good life, in the 

 year 979, or, according to Tighernach, in the year 980; and of his grandson, 

 Gilla Enain, the son of Agda, who was slain in the year 977. The other 

 inscription, which is less perfectly preserved, is obviously older, and cotempo- 

 raneous with the carvings ; and, as it is in the highest degree improbable that 

 Dubcen would have been interred in a grave appropriated to any but a prede- 

 cessor of the same family, we should naturally expect to find the name in the 

 upper inscription in the Irish annals at an earlier period, and among the princes 

 of Teffia. Accordingly, on a reference to these annals, we find the death of 

 Conaing, son of Congal, king of Teffia, recorded at the year 822 in the Annals 

 of Ulster, and at 821 in the Annals of the Four Masters. 



That many of the chiefs of Teffia should have been interred at Clonmacnoise 

 is only what might naturally be presumed, from the celebrity of that place as a 

 cemetery of the chiefs of the southern Hy-Niall race ; and among other evi- 

 dences of the connexion of this family with Clonmacnoise, we find in the Annals 

 of the Four Masters, at the year 996, a record of the death of Dubthach, 

 another son of Dubcen, and grandson of Tadhgan, who was priest of Clon- 

 macnoise ; and from the following inscription upon the cumdach, or case of the 

 MS. Irish ritual, preserved in the library at Stowe, we find that the artifex 

 who made that case was another of the family, and a monk of Clonmacnoise : 



"fOR t)O t)UNChdt> U CQCCaiH t)O mUlNClR C6UC(Na t)O R15N1." 

 " t A PEAYEE FOE DUNCHAD O TACCAIN, OF THE FAMILY OF CLUAIN, WHO 



MADE IT." 

 This Dunchadh flourished previously to the middle of the eleventh century, 



