463 



perverse ingenuity, additional darkness has been thrown upon 

 the obscure subject of Ogham writing. 



Mr. Beauford contributed to the first volume of the Tran- 

 sactions of the Academy a paper in which he describes twelve 

 coins, on which he thinks he finds legends, in Ogham, Roman, 

 and Runic characters intermixed ; and he gives readings of 

 these, exhibiting various Irish names of persons and places.* 

 Any person, the least conversant with numismatics, will at once 

 recognise these coins as being all of them Hiberno-Danish. 

 By the kindness of Dr. Aquilla Smith, Mr. Graves was enabled 

 to exhibit to the Academy one of the actual coins figured by 

 Mr. Beauford, viz., that marked No. 7 in the plate illustrating 

 his paper. 



This coin, now in Dr. Smith's collection, is appropriated 

 by Mr. Lindsay, who has studied this class of coins with most 

 attention, to Sihtric IV., King of Dublin, A. D. 1034. It 

 may, however, belong to Sihtric III., A. D. 989. 



Mr. Beauford's description of the coin is as follows : — 



" Eound the head, on the obverse, is the following inscription 

 in Latin, Runic, and Ogham Croabh characters : 

 u mearc readon 

 or, 

 TJ mearc re a don, for O More Be I dun. 



On the reverse, in one of the quarters of the cross, is a hand, with 

 the following inscription in Latin, Runic, and Ogham Croabh cha- 

 racters : 



mac gh ea 1 a ch o f u 1 1 a 



or, 



Mac Ghealach O Futla, for Magh Ghealach O Fodhla." 



Subjoined is a figure of the coin in question, executed from 



* still more absurd misrepresentations respecting Ogham characters and 

 writing may be seen in a paper by the same author, called Druidism Revived, 

 which is inserted in the second volume of Vallancey's Collectanea. 



VOL. III. 2 S 



