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Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



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of a Cronan son of Luchain, who must have lived about the middle of the 

 seventh century. But now my position is much 

 stronger; I can point to ten, or more, Ogham in- 

 scriptions commencing with this formula. I may 

 therefore claim the discovery of another key to 

 the secret of Ogham writing, not indeed as gene- 

 rally applicable as the lTlacui which was my first 

 contribution, but of great use, both in the deci- 

 phering of the inscriptions, and as furnishing us 

 with an indication of their age and purport. It 

 is worthy of remark that of all the inscribed 

 monuments in which I have found this initial 

 anm only two exhibit crosses, and some of them 

 are singularly rude, massive, and of what might 

 be thought a truly Pagan aspect. Influenced by 

 the intrinsic evidence which the anm supplies, I 

 am now justified in claiming all these for the 

 = . Christian period. 



8 But further, I have noticed monuments which 

 '5 appear to begin with an initial a, preceding an 

 '-£ undoubted proper name. And in one case the 

 ° vowel stroke standing for this letter has a mark 

 05 over it such as might indicate a contraction. I 

 g take these initials to stand for the fuller form 

 ^ anm. You have seen the name Cupcicci upon 

 3 an Ogham monument in Kerry. Well, when I 

 y find another beginning acupcicci, I can hardly 

 •S doubt but that the same name appears in both in- 

 | stances, and that the a is no part of it, but the 

 "§) initial of another word or name. Have I not rea- 

 son now to conjecture that it stands for anm ? 



"With the materials which are now before us, 

 and which are ample enough to guide us safely 

 to a conclusion, you would not have proposed the 

 reading you give for the Maumanorig stone in 

 the Proceedings [Ser. 2, vol. ii. p. 62.] 



I must now pass on to the next word in the 

 inscription before us. 



Tnoelea^oemip is a remarkable name, es- 

 sentially ecclesiastical. It means the tonsured 

 servant of S. Adhamar, or Eadhamar [Lat. 

 Audomara], whose name is to be found in the 

 martyrologies, arid of whose time and pedigree 

 I shall have more to say hereafter. The name, 

 though in another form, occurs on one of the 

 Clonmacnoise monuments, figured in Miss Stokes' 

 second fasciculus of Irish Christian Inscriptions. 

 It is there spelt Odmoer, and she is called insen 



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