Ferguson — On the Callan Ogham Inscription. 1G3 



of the County of Clare, as the monument of Conan, one of Finn Mac Cumhaill's 

 followers ! O'Flanagan, without acknowledging that it had ever been deciphered before 

 [this is not so; see post], actually forges an Irish quatrain, which he cites as a part of 

 the poem called the Battle of Gabhra, to prove that Conan was buried on the Callan 

 mountain, whither he had repaired after the battle of Gabhra, to worship the sun!" 



The broad imputation against Lloyd of actually cutting the inscrip- 

 tion, is contained in a copy of a letter, dated 27th September, 1843, 

 purporting to be from O'Donovan to the late John Windele, preserved 

 amongst the MS. collections of the latter, now in the Academy library 

 (Supplt. Vol. i., p. 183):— 



" I found one Ogham inscription on a cromleach, about one mile N. E. of Ballybav, 

 in the county of Monaghan, but it is most undoubtedly a modern fabrication,* like 

 the one on the Callan mountain, which was cut by John Lloyd, the Irish poet, who 

 afterwards published an account of it. Among the fabrications which brand the anti- 

 quaries of 'the last century with disgrace, I may mention this on the. Callan mountain. 

 O'Flanagan knew right well that an account of it had been published by John Lloyd, 

 and still he gives it as if discovered for the first time by himself! He also interpolates 

 the poem on the battle of Gabhra to connect this monument with that battle. He was 

 a most dishonest man, and his name will descend to posterity as a fabricator. The 

 interpolated verse about the worship of Grian on this hill is too palpably false to be re- 

 ceived by anv one without suspicion, but when the copies are compared, it turns out 

 that they all want the verse about Conan and the worship of Grian on Sliabh- 

 Callan. 



"The Oghams at Dunloe and in Corcaguinny are, however, of a different character 

 from the one on the Callan mountain, and it is a pity to injure the cause by forcing 

 them to be of the same age. The best plan will be to collect as many specimens as 

 possible first, and then to compare them all with the different scales given in the Book 

 of Bally mote, and the other Irish MSS. of authority. I wish the Archaeological Society 

 would publish the tract on the Oghams in the Book of Ballymote,+ so that investigators 

 might be put in possession of the real nature and amount of the information we possess on 

 the subject. Nothing should be taken at second-hand. I would not believe one word 

 from O'Flanagan or Vallancey on such subjects, but I can excuse them more or less, 

 as they lived in an age when fabrication was fashionable ; but now the time is for ever 

 fled when a Highlander or an Irishman might forge what he pleased, and tell the world 

 that it was a translation from the Celtic. 



"We must all be on our guard against the forgeries of the last century, and the 

 entire of Vallancey's Collectanea may be said to be a tissue of wild vagaries of his own 

 brain. I could not believe that he could have understood with any certainty one sen- 

 tence in any vellum Irish MS. containing a noun, a verb, an objective case, and involv- 

 ing an Irish idiom; and he has done more by his pretensions of a thorough 

 knowledge of this language to bring Irish literature into contempt on the continent than 

 any man that ever took pen in hand. This I learn from a letter from Pictet of 

 Geneva. 



"I say all this to put you on your guard against the Collectanea, and to induce you if 

 possible to receive with caution any remarks of the dishonest O'Flanagan." 



* The writer of this paper has given a close examination to the Ballybav (Lennan, 

 or Tullycorbet) cromleach, and stated fully his reasons for regarding the inscribed 

 characters still visible on it as genuine, in a letter to Rev. James Graves, M. R. I. A., dated 

 Oct. 1873, and published in the Journal of the Royal Historical and Archaeological Asso- 

 ciation of Ireland, 4th ser. vol. ii. p. 523. 



f This tract when published will be found rather disappointing. It is obviously the 

 work of a writer affecting a show of learning by reproducing the well known manuscript 

 Ogham alphabet in a variety of forms which add nothing substantial to our stock of infor- 

 mation, and are in many instances merely puerile. The real nature and amount of the in- 

 formation we possess on the subject of Ogham writing must be judged of by the results of 

 a long and patient induction grounded on the monuments themselves. 



