260 Ferguson — On Ancient Inscriptions in Gahvay and Mayo. 



ble appearance of menueh, taken alone, with its minuscular initial m, 

 it may be, after all, that this inscription has been conceived accord- 

 ing to a method of which Ogham texts seem to furnish examples — 

 of dividing proper names by the interjection, as it were, of other 

 members of the legend between their component parts ; so that, 

 the associations originally called up by Petrie may possibly yet re- 

 constitute themselves around this monument, although coming toge- 

 ther in a new combination, and owing their disclosure to lights 

 reflected from a sphere of inquiry in which Petrie saw nothing but 

 darkness. Menueh, in any case, must be regarded as a singular proper 

 name, standing alone ; and if not so taken, its possible correspondence 

 to the cailleach and lleian of other Irish and Welsh texts would sug- 

 gest further Oghamic analogies. 



The remaining presentations belong to a more modern and very 

 different school of lapidary writing ; being casts of inscriptions in the 

 raised Gothic or Lombarclic character, in general use in monumental 

 sculpture in those islands during the fourteenth and fifteenth century. 

 They are noticed in Sir W. Wilde's " Lough Corrib," and Miss Stokes's 

 " Christian Inscriptions." 



YIII is found on the base of the broken cross in the main street of 

 Cong, Co. Mayo. The cast entirely supports the reading of this in- 

 scription determined by Todd and Petrie (Proceedings of R. I. A., 1st 

 Ser., Vol. vi., p. 225), and except that the words are not divided, is as 

 follows : — 



OR' DO niCtyOL 7TG' DO 6ILLI 

 BGCRD ODUBUf^ICCI] Eft 

 Bin TtBTvTDDeOTlU (XUTlGTl. 



"Pray for Mchol and for Gilliberd O'Dubthaich (O'Duffy), who 

 were in the abbotship (i. e. who were abbots) of Cong." 



IX. and X. Prom a fragment apparently of the shaft of the same 

 cross now lying in the sill of the east window of the adjoining church. 

 They exhibit the remains of the names Gilliberd (and of Mchol?) 

 O'Dubthaich, and of Cong, and express the abbatial office, as in the 

 preceding example. 



Little remains of the C of " Cunga " but the upright bar resemb- 

 ling a capital I, with which the opening of the C is closed in this 

 peculiar alphabet. This gives to the character the appearance of the 

 old Irish form of CC, for which it has been frequently mistaken. 



At what time Mchol and Gilliberd O'Duffy lived has not been 

 ascertained (though frequent notices of the O'Duffys occur in the An- 

 nals in connexion with Cong) ; neither is it known when first the 

 Lombarclic letters came into use in Irish lapidary writing ; but Mchol 

 and Gilbert are names which may be taken as presumably pointing to 

 the post-Xorman period. 



