Feeguson — Alleged Forgery respecting Mount-Callan. 321 



monument. Is, then, the monument ascribed to Conan to he sought 

 for in some other part of the mountain ? and is that which has been 

 discovered, one only of similar remains, liable to be disclosed by further 

 search on the site of those osnachs, or popular commemorative assem- 

 blies described in the second paper, and which I may perhaps be jus- 

 tified in designating as our Irish "nseniae" of the eighteenth century? 

 That it was actually disclosed to view, after having lain for a long 

 time concealed under the surface, was one of the features of the local 

 story respecting it in 1814. This appears from the letter of Mr. 

 Kennedy (not the scribe) above referred to. 



" The flag," he says, "is of slate colour, and is certainly a slate 

 flag, and at the upper or broader end appears a quarry, but only so 

 wide as it may happen in shifting this flag from it, at the time it was 

 discovered by one Dr. 0' Gorman, who dreamed of it, and spent six 

 days before that he found out where it stood. It was very shallow 

 covered, which the face of the flags are (as ?) exposed shows. The 

 Ogham flag was attempted to be removed. The attempt did not suc- 

 ceed. Its position now is on a hanging level." — (Windele MSS., Suppl., 

 vol. iii., p. 333). 



Supposing this account to be founded on fact, the date of the first 

 disclosure to the public eye, at least in recent times, of what is now 

 called leac Conain, might not unreasonably be assigned to the decade 

 preceding 1760, about which year 0' Curry states that Comyns 

 attempted to translate the legend. For Comyns, writing his romance 

 in 1749, although invited by his plot to the subject of monumental 

 inscriptions in this locality, — as where he introduces an angel inscrib- 

 ing the epitaph of two of his characters with the point of a spear 

 on the rock closing the mouth of their sepulchre (MS. in lib. R. I. A., 

 24, c. xii., p. 61) — takes no occasion to heighten his colours by any 

 allusion to Ogham or other cryptic writing, which a romance-writer of 

 his school could hardly be expected to refrain from, supposing him in 

 possession of information so apposite. If we ask, then, what was it 

 that set Dr. 0' Gorman dreaming of, or searching for, the monument 

 of Conan, we shall probably be led to infer that he had heard, either 

 in verse or in prose, the substance of the impeached stanzas, then current 

 as part of the popular literature of the district ; and, if we further 

 ask, why should not equal success attend a renewed examination of 

 the site from thence to the great cromlech still standing on the west, 

 including the eminence on the summit of which " Altoir na greine" 

 formerly stood ? we shall probably agree that though we may fail to 

 find the inscribed monument of a hero of the 3rd century, we very 

 probably would be rewarded by discovering other traces of a great 

 primitive cemetery, and amongst these, not impossibly, other Ogham 

 inscriptions. 



Before leaving this subject — to be next taken up, I trust, by more 

 competent hands — I would ask permission to add some further facts 

 and observations supplemental to all three papers. In evidence of the 

 popular belief as to Icaia Conain, I am furnished with the following 



