118 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



masonry. It is on one of these the name ITedffis found. The inscription 

 on the other offers an example of a character hitherto only found, so 

 far as I know, in medieval manuscripts, where it stands as a con- 

 tracted form or siglum for ui; and, so far, savours of more recent times 

 than the companion legend. 



The other chambers in this minor enclosure are in no way distin- 

 guishable from those of the great "Relig;" and supposing them 

 cotemporaneous with the cave, and seeing the cave to be posterior in 

 date to ogham writing, one is forced to accept the caution, which those 

 objects powerfully inculcate, against concluding anything regarding 

 the antiquity of the " Relig," from the mere fact of the rudeness of its 

 sepulchral chambers. 



Being thus warned that the " Relig" by itself affords no absolute 

 test of its being of the vast antiquity claimed for it, we are led to 

 inquire whether other cemeteries, probably of the Pagan period, exist 

 with which it may be compared; and the place which first attracts the 

 attention in such an inquiry is the Hill of Usnach. 



Although not directly enumerated among the Pagan places of burial 

 in the poems or tracts on the Cemeteries, the Hill of Usnach is 

 mentioned in our old books as one of the places of most venerable 

 antiquity in Ireland. Such was its reputation, not only here but abroad, 

 about seven hundred years ago, when the stones of the inner circle of 

 Stonehenge were alleged to have been brought thence by Merlin. Such 

 was its reputation at least several centuries earlier, when the story 

 of the Acts of Saint Patrick was first committed to writing, and a 

 miraculous reason assigned for the friable character of the lime- 

 stone rock, of which one of its grandest monuments, the "Cat-stone'' 

 cromlech, is composed. Here it was that, in the second century, 

 Teuthal Techtmar established an cenach, or fair, similar to those at 

 Tara, Taltin, and Tlacta; and it may be considered that when- 

 ever the games and festivities of an cenach were celebrated, they 

 were in connexion with sepulchral places. Accordingly, there is 

 found on the Hill of Usnach an ancient cemetery, which may with 

 great confidence be regarded as one of its primitive monuments. 



Usnach is situate in the county of Westmeath, about four miles 

 north-west from the Castletown station of the Midland Railway. The 

 hill is a long swelling green eminence, lying east and west, and has 

 never been submitted to the plough. It has two summits, the eastern 

 one of which is oocupied by the cemetery. A broad avenue has formerly 

 led to it from the south, the lines of which are still traceable on the 

 green sward. With the exception of the Cat-stone, and some smaller 

 earthworks on the lower part of the eastern slope, it is the only 

 remaining structural work on the hill. The area is not so great as 

 that of Relig-na-ree; but the general arrangement and internal divisions 

 of the enclosure are so far of a cognate character as to produce a strong 

 prima facie impression that they belong to the same period and have 

 served the same purposes. 



