168 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



wide discrepancy. In that part of the legend preceding the groups, 

 sounding Conaf'm O'Flanagan's copy, not fewer than seven instances occur 

 in which characters crossing the medial line are retrenched to one side 

 of it, and characters at one side prolonged across it. Was Mr. Burton 

 Conyngham party to intentional misdrawing ? It cannot reasonably be 

 so supposed. The divergencies are obviously mistakes of transcription, 

 and show very plainly that the surface in 1785 was almost as worn, 

 and the indentations on it as faint and difficult to make out as they are 

 at this day. In the third drawing before the Academy, these discre- 

 pancies of 0' Flanagan's last reading are indicated in red ink; Lloyd's 

 divergencies — reconstructing his text from his English, — are in like 

 manner exhibited in blue. It is beyond measure difficult to suppose 

 that the digits which both failed to read as they exist, were ever pre- 

 pared by either, for the purpose of sustaining readings with which 

 they so largely disagree. 



It is of the nature of the charge of forgery, that when dispelled 

 from one object, it tends to settle itself on another. Lloyd and O'Flana- 

 gan being out of the indictment, what shall we say of Cornyns? It 

 will probably occur to the minds of the Academy, that where men who 

 used this inscription for the purpose of advancing their own reputations 

 for ingenuity and scholarship, have been acquitted of having had any 

 hand in its production, Comyns, who never referred to it in any writing, 

 — for the inference that might be drawn from O'Curry's note that it is 

 mentioned in the tale of Torlb Mac Stairn is quite erroneous, — 

 and who seems to have regarded it only as the subject of a conjec- 

 tural reading, may safely call for our nolle prosequi. In truth, the 

 difficulty of such a fabrication would be so great, and the chances of 

 detection so imminent, that, unless to serve the purpose of some con- 

 templated literary fraud to be put in practice soon after its perpetration, 

 the roguery cannot be conceived to be entertained by any reasonable 

 being. 



The features which hitherto have been relied on as casting suspicion 

 on the inscription are, its word-divisions, its medial line, its agreement 

 with forms of Ogham writing, found in MSS., in which, unlike the 

 case of ordinary Ogham inscriptions, the vowels and consonants are 

 alike produced by stem-crossing digits ; and its cartouche, or enclosing 

 frame. 



The dots of division, so far as I know, outside the MS. examples, 

 and the cartouche are peculiar to it ; but in its other characteristic fea- 

 tures, it corresponds to several examples of Oghams of unquestionable 

 authenticity both in this country and in Scotland. I exhibit a cast of 

 the Ogham inscription on the Newton Stone, Aberdeenshire, in which 

 the incised medial line, and the stem-crossing vowel groups are equally 

 present; and I refer to the Ogham inscribed stones at Maumanorig, 

 and at Kilbonane in this country, for medial lines similarly inscribed ; 

 and to the drawing of the grave stone of Colman Bocht for the same 

 feature in combination with digit-formed vowel groups. 



The indentations seem partly to have been picked out, as in the medial 



