Graves—On Monuments bearing Ogam Inscriptions. 283 
XLV.—Ow tae IpentiricaTion oF THE Proper Names APPEARING ON 
two Monuments BEARING Ogam Inscriptions. By the Ricur 
Rev. Cuartes Graves, D.D., Lord Bishop of Limerick. 
[Read, June 24, 1884. ] 
Ir, as I maintain, the Ogam is a cryptic character, intended to be 
intelligible only to the initiated, and if the names written in it on 
ancient monuments are further disguised, as I am prepared to show, 
by transformations of various kinds, we need not be surprised or dis- 
appointed if we succeed only rarely in identifying the persons of whom 
so obscure a record is preserved in these mysterious memorials. I pro- 
pose in this communication to give an account of two Ogam monu- 
ments, in the expectation of being able to convince the members of 
the Royal Irish Academy that we are able, with something approach- 
ing to absolute certainty, to identify the persons whose names they 
bear. 
I. 
The first which I shall notice is a monument which stands in the 
churchyard at Aghabulloge, near Macroom, in the county of Cork. 
It has always been known and held in great veneration as St. Olan’s 
Stone. Mr. Brash has pronounced that the inscription, so far as it is 
legible, has no reference to that saint. It must be confessed that it 
was not easy to discover the clue by which we are led to an opposite 
judgment. 
In the first place it must be noticed that the name Olan is not to 
be found in that form in any ancient list of Irish saints. The correct 
spelling of it seems to have been Holang or Hulang. A saint of this 
name, called also Kulogius, is recorded as having been preceptor to St. 
Bairre (Finnbarr), of Cork. The name Eolang, occurring at the 5th 
of September in the Martyrology of Donegal, is followed by a blank 
space, which seems to indicate that the author was uncertain whether 
EKolang was a priest or bishop. He is said to have lived at Achadh- 
bo-Cainnigh, in Ossory. In the Life of St. Finnbarr there is a notice 
of him, from which we gather that he was the preceptor of that 
saint, and that he was one of a company of twelve persons who 
accompanied him in a pilgrimage to Rome. Even if we disbelieve the 
story that he was a hearer of Gregory the Great, it is plain that he 
must have been a man of learning as the instructor of St. Finnbarr, 
and holding a high place in a brotherhood of distinguished eccle- 
siastics. 
The next step in my argument is to show that Kolang, the pre- 
ceptor of St. Finnbarr, was also known by the name of Maccorbius. 
For this we have the authority of the writer of the Life of St. 
Finnbarr, who says:—Legitur quod Sanctus Maccorbius, Sancti Gregori 
olim auditor, fuerit S. Barri institutor. We are now in a position to 
