180 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



the characters maqi and coi are discernible suggested to Mr. Brash to 

 look for the letters mu in the intermediate space ; and there do exist 

 there certain digits and notches "which may very well be the remains of 

 these characters ; and which, I think, ought so to be accepted, adding 

 one further link to the chain of identification. 



There remains one other example of this kind of detached "biliteral;" 

 in the inscribed stone now in the Lapidary Museum of the Academy, 

 from the cave at Glanavullin, near Cork. It is one of the Windele 

 Collection recently acquired by the Academy. It bears the name 

 " Ulccayni," being seemingly one of those humiliatory designations to 

 the use of which, amongst the western Christians of the third and fourth 

 century, M. le Blant has drawn attention in the Revue Archceologique. 

 Whatever be its signification, its use in this argument depends on the 

 fact that from the south of Ireland it echoes the name Ulcagni, found 

 in Boman characters on two of the early inscribed stones of Wales; and 

 although the echo comes from a distance, the inference that the one 

 legend is the Oghamic equivalent of the other can hardly, after what 

 we have seen, be considered less strong than if we had the two texts 

 side by side on the same monument. 



The questions remain : Whence came these Oghamic texts among 

 the people of South Britain? Did they impart them to the Irish, or the 

 Irish to them? Are these texts, or some of them, pre-Augustinian and 

 pre-Patrician respectively ; or are they the memorials in both countries 

 of the Irish religious zeal of the sixth and succeeding centuries ? I do 

 not at present attempt to answer these questions ; but I may be allowed 

 to say that it would be difficult to propose a subject more worthy of .the 

 consideration of British and Irish scholars. 



[On the subject of this paper, see also that which follows next. — Ed.] 



