Ferguson — On Ogham Inscription at Breastagh. 205 



line, and from, the three stem- crossing digits = tsg sounding alike either 

 way. In this view, the s might be the terminal of a preceding name 

 in IAS ; and, bearing the analogy of eecias in mind, one cannot but 

 cast a wistful glance on seec in that form. 



However this may be, I may observe that this is the first time in 

 my experience that I have seen the no of the MS. keys in a lapidary 

 inscription ; and that I now desire to withdraw the mark of interro- 

 gation over that combination of digits in the lapidary alphabet which 

 I have published. 



I have but to add, for the guidance of any one who may essay the 

 task of extracting another, and possibly a truer, meaning from these 

 digits, that the space occupied by the vowel v is wide enough to have 

 been originally filled with four or five additional notches, and that 

 the terminal character at the top is faint, and may have been a 

 duplicate of the penultimate. 



I own my first impression was, that the e:n t gel of the second reading 

 gave the key to the rest of the text, and that it was either ecclesiastical 

 (0776^05), or national, and referred to the country of some Egilbert 

 disguised under those strange combinations which follow the second 

 Maq. The considerations which have led me to dwell in preference 

 on the interpretation looking to the house of Awley, and the period of 

 the second generation from him, which would bring us to the begin- 

 ning of the sixth century, rest mainly on the name of Cairbre, which 

 certainly is not a likely name to have been bestowed by an Anglo- 

 Saxon on his son, even in those ages when Mayo was so frequented by 

 students of that nation as to earn the designation of " Mayo of the 

 Saxons." 



While this pillar bears the longest Ogham legend yet dis- 

 covered, it is itself second in bulk only to that great monument 

 at Ballycrovane, in West Cork, lately described to the Academy 

 by Mr. Brash. (See ante, page 196.) It carries the examples of 

 Ogham writing an additional step northward, and is remarkable as 

 having part of its inscription, like that on the " Coirthe" of Pothad 

 Airgthech, on the end which was in the ground. It is worthy of note 

 that, in the story of Mongan, the locality of Fothadh's pillar was in 

 Antrim. Mr. Wakeman has found an Ogham in Fermanagh, and I 

 have heard of others in Longford and Sligo : so that probably we may 

 yet have contributions to this curious chapter in palaeography from 

 every county of Ireland, as well as from the Shetland and Orkney 

 islands, from Scotland, Wales, and Devon. 



I cannot but recall the pleasure I have experienced in travelling 

 through the region between Ballina and the site of the Ogham- 

 inscribed stone of Breastagh. Leaving Ballina, one passes, on the 

 wayside to the right, the Well of Patrick, in which he baptized 

 Eochaid, son of Dathi, cousin of Cairbre, of whom I have been treat- 

 ing ; and, turning a couple of hundred yards to the left, passes 

 under the ruined walls of Kilmore-Moy to the rock of Liag, and sees 



SER. II., VOL. I., POL. LIT. AND ANTIQ. 2 G 



