164 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 



Injustice to the memory of Mr. Windele, it is right to append a copy 

 of some portions of his letter in reply, in which he displays an acumen 

 and a firmness of judgment worthy of commendation : — 



" I should like much to see a copy of the Ogham inscription on the Ballybay Crom- 

 leac, after the strong assertions relative to ihat of Callan, which, nevertheless, I believe 

 to be no forgery. I should hnsitate about the condemnation of any other without very 

 ample proof. ... I would in every case of this kind wish to judge for myself. 

 Mr. Petrie some years ago mentioned to me his belief that the Callan inscription was a 

 forgery. I did not then nor can I now subscribe to that. I have not seen it myself, 

 but I have the report of two experienced friends who visited it together, and I have 

 their copies, and especially the rubbing taken by them : all which have satisfied me that 

 O' Flanagan's copy was quite erroneous, but that nevertheless the monument contains a 

 genuine inscription. . . . O'Flanagan's Conan is not there. Had he forged he 

 would have taken care of that. . . . One should think that O' Flaherty [sic = 

 O'Flanagan] ought to be able to give a correct copy of his own production." " 



It will here be proper to correct some errors both of O'Donovan 

 and Windele as regards John Lloyd. 



O'Donovan can hardly have read with attention the paper of O'Fla- 

 nagan in our Transactions, or he would not have charged him with 

 suppressing Lloyd's claim to have read the inscription. What ; Flanagan 

 said on the subject is this: — 



"There was, indeed, another gentleman in the county of Clare, a Mr. Lloyd, who 

 published an account of that county, in which lie made mention of Conan's monument 

 on Mount Callan, but, as his explanation of the inscription is exactly in the words of 

 my first effort to that purpose [Fan licsi ta Comni Colgac cos-fada], I am apt to believe 

 it was from hearing what account I had given of it rather than from any search or dis- 

 covery of his own; for his publication appeared just about the time of my first visit to 

 the monument." {Trans. £. LA., vol. i., Antiq. p. 8.) 



Mr. Windele, on the other hand, overlooks the fact that it is Lloyd, 

 and not O'Flanagan, who is charged by O'Donovan with the lapidary 

 forgery. 



But his acute remark that the forger ought to be able to give a cor- 

 rect copy of his own production, applies with equal force to both. 

 Lloyd's best defence, however, will be the passage from his little book, 

 now a work of extraordinary rarity, for access to which I am indebted 

 to the obliging kindness of Jasper R. Joly, Esq., LL. D. 



In reading this passage it will be observed that, whilst referring to 

 the Callan monument, which, we are asked to believe, he fabricated for 

 the purpose of displaying his own learning, Lloyd claims no honors for 

 himself either as discoverer or translator, and does not even mention the 

 fact that the characters are in Ogham. What he says is put forward 

 in a cursory manner as one of the commonplaces of his subject, and 

 without any of that vain-gloriousness which might be expected from a 

 writer of his class in announcing something novel and surprising. Read- 

 ing his account, dated May, 1779, we see that it is quite in harmony 

 with what O'Curry states about the notoriety of the inscription, and its 

 interpretation by Conryns nineteen years before. The passage occurs at 

 pp. 8, 9, of his book, which is entitled: — "A Short Tour, or impartial 



