134 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



But possibly it may be that the sealing off of the surface which he 

 describes may have obliterated the greater part of the inscription, 



and that what we have here is only the first of the three lines men- 

 tioned by Neilson or his informant. The first group of the inscription 

 as it stands will be quite familiar to you. It is evidently the oroit 

 of the well-known Christian sepulchral formula, oroit ar, such a one, 

 or oroit do, such a one ; or oroit ar anniain, of such a one, in which, it 

 will be observed that the oroit is always followed by ar or do : each 

 alike signifying " for." I refer to Miss Stokes' repertory of Christian 

 Inscriptions, where all the varieties of the formula are to be found. 



This conclusively stamps the inscription as Christian. Any further spe- 

 culation, grounded on a text at second-hand, cannot promise more than 

 problematical results. Still, the inquiry will be worth making as, at 

 least, an exercise in palaeography." At first, it might seem that the general 

 form of the characters might serve as a key to their approximate date. 

 But it is only where we have numerous examples from one school of 

 inscriptional sculpturing, that we can, with safety, rely on characteristic 

 forms of letters as indicating this or that century. "We are here in the 

 North of Ireland, far removed from the lapidary fashions of Clonmacnoise, 

 and other seats of the art, where a critical eye may discern progres- 

 sive changes from earlier to later forms. The only local aid we can 

 refer to is the formula or do dertrend, from the neighbouring locality 

 of Movilla (W. H. Patterson. — "Notices of Ancient Tombstones at 

 Movilla, County Down." Belfast: 1869), which may suggest to look 

 for do rather than ar in the next group of the legend ; though 

 the latter is the shape which the irregular lines of Dubourdieu's 

 drawing will take to most eyes accustomed to detect the elements 

 of known forms among adventitious strokes, copied, as the superfluous 

 lines of this inscription have most probably been, from mere inequali- 

 ties of the surface. 



Such, very plainly, is the pendent to the second character in the 

 first group, which has to be thrown out of the field of vision before we 

 recognize the lines of the regular B. In the second group, whether 

 it be accepted as ar or do, considerably greater rectifications must be 

 resorted to. If ar, the protruded lines at the upper left-hand corner 

 giving the characteristic form of the Irish D must be retrenched ; and 

 instead of the continuous circular outline given by Dubourdieu to the 

 rest of the character, the arc at the right must be inserted, to give 

 the A its characteristic form Q. If do, while the protruded lines 

 and right arc will stand, it will be necessary to add a corresponding 

 arc to complete the ; and to admit an overlapping of the two letters, 



