] 42 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy . 



for them. In such an inscription as lvguqeit maqi qeitti I hare for some 

 time been inclined to see in the first word merely an abbreviation for 

 luguqeitti; and this inscription, taken in connexion with what is an 

 apparently absolutely contemporary and closely associated inscription (So. 2 ), 

 confirms me in this interpretation. 



(2) The supporting stone of the second lintel. It is 5 feet 9 inches long, 

 1 foot 3 inches broad, and 9 inches thick. The inscription is neatly cut ; and. 

 though the scores are minute, there is no doubt of the reading at any part of 

 its course. The first two letters have been crowded into a little indentation 

 that has been spalled out of the edge. The last notch is very faint, but it is 

 quite certain. 



Ill "II ' "" mux i/i i m/i m i l iiiii u i n/in , ;||| i ; u i 



VEQ IKAMIMAQ ILUGUN I 



As is my usual practice, I transcribe X provisionally by k. I have long 

 held that this was a guttural, not a labial: and Professor Marstrander and 

 Professor MacXeill have both subscribed to this view. I attach peculiar 

 importance to the present inscription, as. except in the Coligny Calendar, we 

 have not found any ancient Celtic dialect in which p and Q appear side by 



side. The reading here is certainly x • / - lami. not the frequent 



word x , hoi. 



Here, then, we have another ' : son of Lugunos " commemorated, and the 

 general similarity of the two names corroborates the d priori probability that 

 we have to deal with the monuments of two brothers. Thus we have two 

 contemporary inscriptions — 



Micanawi maq Luffi 

 Veqikami maqi Luguni — 



and it must surely be agreed that the maq of the first of these, in the light of 

 the second, is a mere abbreviation. 



The father's name is easiest ; and we may take it first. It is one of the 

 commonest and most widely spread of ogham names. It appears in Meath. 

 at St. Cairan's ; in "Waterford, at "Windgap, near Carrick-on-Suir ; in Cork on 

 oue of the Ballyhank stones, now in the Royal Irish Academy's collection ; 

 and in Kerry on the splendid monument at Droumatouk above Kenmare. As 

 Luighne it is familiar in us. literature. It is presumably one of the numerous 

 names, personal and local, which testify to the honour in which was held the 

 great god Lo/jh. I need not apologize for the suggestion of a pagan name 



