82 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



slate, though more closely grained than many of the blocks of this 

 imsatisfactoiy material, which is so frequently used in Co. Cork for Ogham 

 writing. It measures 5 feet 7 inches by 1 foot 8 inches by 10 inches. The 

 inscription runs up the left angle, over the top, and a little way down the 

 right angle. It is in excellent order; well and carefully cut in the first 

 instance, every score is clear and fresh, except the A at the end of the first 

 word, which has been broken off — probably by the rath- builders, when they 

 adapted the stone as a lintel for the roof of their cave. 



The reading is as follows, beyond all possibility of doubt and dispute — 



UDDilEKSA CELI NETTASLOGI. 



The last word is the easiest, so we begin by noticing that it evidently is 

 the familiar name Nad-shiaigh, common in the genealogies and elsewhere in 

 the MS. literature, though not hitherto found in any form in Ogham. 



The second word marks the owner of the monument as a " follower " or 

 " tenant," or in some such way a subordinate of this Nadsluaigh. In a 

 previous paper' I have enumei-ated the stones bearing this formula, and, as 

 some may recollect, I have endeavoured to find it also hidden in the 

 enigmatical inscription at Killeen Cormac. 



But the crux of the inscription lies in the first word, the name of this 

 follower of Nadsluaigh. This name is absolutely unique in Irish literature, 

 so far as I, or the scholars that I have consulted, are able to say. The only 

 ray of illumination, a feeble one at best, comes from the name uddami, on 

 one of the "Whitefield stones ; this does not help us much, as UDDAiil is itself 

 highly problematical. 



Professor MacXeill kindly allows me to quote the following ingenious 

 note on the name, which he has sent me :— 



" Taking dddmexsa to be genitive singular, to what declension is it to be 

 referred ? So far the only Ogham genitives ending in a that have been 

 identified belong to the consonant declension, a representing earlier as<os. 



" Uddmen'SA should be a syncopated form, since unsyncopated «5 must be 

 as old as nt, nc, which already in the earliest known Ogham spelling have 

 become d, g. However, the conversion of ns to s stiU took place after the 

 introduction of Latin among the insular Celts ; mensa>mds>m.ias, c.ensus>cis, 

 sponsa>p6s ; later sensus>sians. The probability is that some vowel has 

 disappeared between n and s, as in sinser<*senisser°^<*senister°^. So far, mi, 

 genitive ynh, is the sole authenticated instance of a consonantal stem ending 

 in s{<ns). 



" For the prefix UD see Thurneysen, Ilandbuch, § 387. The d coalesces 



' Proc. R.I.A., vol. xxxii, section C, p. 230. 



