322 
peared. By his kind permission Mr. Graves is enabled to 
lay the following outline of it before the Academy : 
ae 
aN 
The character of the inscription, and the style of the cross, 
belong, as Mr. Petrie thinks, to the ninth century. It is not 
unlikely that this may be the tombstone of the very person by 
whom the Book of Armagh was transcribed. His having been 
buried at Clonmacnoise rather than at Armagh, furnishes no 
argument to the contrary. We know that many distinguished 
ecclesiastics and learned men came from remote places to pass 
their last days as pilgrims at Clonmacnoise. It might be that 
Ferdomnach retired to that place when Armagh was plundered 
by the Danes in 831. 
It is not a little remarkable, that the Book of Lecan, in 
the library of the Royal Irish Academy, furnishes us with the 
