Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 351 



LVI. — Three Additional Notes on Ogham Inscriptions at Mona- 

 taggart, Co. Core. Conmiunicated by Samuel Ferguson, LL. D., 

 Q, C, V. P. E.I. A. 



{In continuation from page 297.) 



[Eead 25th January, 1875]. 



I. By John Rhys, M. A., late Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. 



"Writing on the subject of the second and third Monataggart texts, 

 Mr. Rhys says : — 



The reading " Dalagni Magi Bali" chimes in very satisfactorily 

 with the diminutive force of agn, and its subsequent use as a patro- 

 nymic perhaps : cf . Gaulish cni (genitive), and -cnos nominative, as in 

 Brutis and Bruticnos (I am quoting from memory). I would not 

 identify Balagni with Talagni, for I see no reason why the two should 

 not have co-existecl. The latter is, in "Welsh, Talan. As to the other 

 inscription, it is, of course, very much harder. I would treat X here 

 and in some other inscriptions as a mere word divider, or as the Chris- 

 tianj preceding names in the 8th, 9th, or 10th centuries. Then in 

 cas ethe strokes number five, are you sure that you could or should not 

 read qrenalugos ? (" the tomb) of Broiniena, the grandson of holy Cren- 

 lagh (or of Netaqrenalugos) ?" But the query then would be as to the 

 name Qrenalugos. As to neta, I take it to be equivalent to netta, and 

 to mean pure, clean, or the like, as I connect it with Welsh nith-io, to 

 winnow corn ; if so, Nettalami would mean pure-handed or clean- 

 handed. Here, as the name is already a compound, I should take 

 neta as a qualifying epithet. I consider the Irish word oi (modern 

 Irish o, genitive ui or i), as having once begun with a p, but that p 

 is believed to have disappeared before the separation of the Gauls and 

 the Goidelo-Kimric Celts ; so one could not consider X as standing for p 

 here. The genitive oi goes a considerable way to show that mucoi 

 (Welsh macwy, ' a young man, a groom'), is a compound of it and 

 some other word : it appears in MS. old Irish as mocu, macu, 

 &(■., resolved later into mac ui. What I have said above of neta is 

 purely hypothetical. There are other ways of attempting its ex- 

 planation, especially by reference to cath, ' battle,' and Neid, tbe 

 war-god of the ancient Irish. 



