£28 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



letters. "We are here in the presence of an inscription that has severely 

 taxed the ingenuity of two generations of scholars. It consists of one line 

 of letters, fourteen in number. Except one of these — the fifth — all these 

 letters are perfectly clear, though worn, and there is not the least possibility 

 of doubt as to the way in which they should be read. The first four letters 

 are IWE. Then comes a character which is slightly broken at the top. 

 What is left is an upright line, with an oblique line to the right of it — like 

 an E which has lost its top loop, or an N which has lost its right hand 

 upright. After this ambiguous letter the inscription continues EDEVV] DES : 

 the R is so written as to overtop the rest of the letters, which in other 

 respects are well cut and carefully aligned. The final S is reversed. 



The Rev. J. Shearman, the discoverer of the monument, in his communi- 

 cation to the Royal Irish Academy {Proceedings, vol. ix (1^64-6), p. 25 i), 

 read the fifth letter as an R, and spaced and translated the whole inscription 

 thus: IV VERE DRVVIDES, " Four true druids." 1 1 is perhaps needless 

 to point out the improbability of this interpretation, ingenious though it 

 undoubtedly is. There is precedent for the commemoration of groups of 

 men numerically; at Iniscealtra we have a stone inscribed ILAD IN 

 DECHEXBOIR, ■' the grave of the ten men"; at Onaght in Aranmore we 

 have OROIT AR II OAN< »IX, " a prayer for the two canons." The well- 

 known stone in the same cemetery inscribed VII ROMANT is not in point, 

 however, as this is probably a dedication to the seven martyr sons of 

 Felicitas, 1 rather than a memorial to seven Romans who by some chance 

 found their way to the Islands of Aran. But in any case the practice is 

 rare, and I do not think that anyone would now venture to express his 

 agreement with Father Shearman's rendering — especially as it was suggested 

 in the interests of an impossible identilication of the persons supposed to be 

 commemorated by the monument. 



It was probably in unconscious revolt from this unconvincing interpreta- 

 tion that Stokes and other scholars preferred to read the letter as N. It was 

 noticed that the small fracture at the top of the character was not large enough 

 for the loop of an R, especially in view of th large size with which the 

 engraver endowed the other R in the inscription. To complete the N it is 

 necessary to borrow the upright stroke of the following E. Such a ligature 

 is of course common enough, and need not cause any difficulty ; but it is 

 questionable whether we were much better off, with regard (o the interpre- 

 tation of the inscription, with an N" than with an R. The inscription would 

 naturally divide itself into 1VVEKE DRVVIDES. Some interpreted this 



1 Compare Cksad snnd secht mbrathar W-Rdinih tuir-ros rigsaer, Martyrology of Gorman, 

 10 July. 



