322 



peared. By his kind permission Mr. Graves is enabled to 

 lay the following outline of it before the Academy : 



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 



