146 Proceedings of the Royal Irinh Academy. 



(10). Gr 3. Stone, 10 inches high by 1 foot by 10 inches, tapering to 

 8 inches by 7 inches, with socket 4 inches by 3| inches by 2j- inches deep. 



(11). G 18. Plate XTI, fig. 1 ; CIIL 56 ; BW " Cross-base in graveyard," 

 on Plate 2. Stone, 9 inches high, with trapezium-shaped upper surface, the 

 sides measuring respectively 2 feet 10 inches, 2 feet ii inches, 4 feet 2 inches, 

 and 2 feet 10 inches. An oblong socket in the middle, parallel with the 

 longest side, 1 foot 8i inches long, 4 inches across, 7 inches deep. A groove 

 is cut round the upper surface, parallel with the edges ; and between the 

 socket and the longest side is this inscription — 



+ iiAT) T-oechetibom 



(" The Grave of the Ten Men ") 



Who these " ten men " may have been, it is useless to speculate. For the 

 formula we may compare the memorial " of the two canons " at St. Brecan's, 

 Aran Mor. 



The chamfering of the lower sinister angle is curious, but can, I think, 

 be explained. It is clear that the long word Dechenhoir threw the sculptor 

 out of his calculations. The first few letters of the inscription are crowded 

 in anticipation of the space he would have to leave to contain it ; and the 

 later letters are spread out, as he found that he had more room at his disposal 

 than he had expected. The chamfering away of the angle was a rather 

 clumsy device to hide the asymmetry proiiuced by this error of judgment. 

 The stone is broken through the socket, and was so when Wakeman drew it 

 in 1838. His drawing, in the Ordnance Survey sketches, is reproduced in 

 CIIL. According to O'Conor' the socket had been " filled up by a stone 

 which was formed so as to adapt itself into it, and was called a ' tongue.' " 

 This, however, had already disappeared when he wrote. I tliought at first 

 that a long, flat stone, without any engraving upon it, now lying east of the 

 inscribed stone, might possibly have been the missing " tongue " ; but I found 

 that it was a little too thick. Nothing among the fragments now to be seen 

 on the island will fit the socket. O'Donovan scribbled a conjecture on p. 560 

 of the O.S. Letters that the inscription was incomplete, and that the rest of 

 it had been on the missing cross, of which this " tongue " was probably the 

 last relic. The small initial cross, however, shows that the inscription, 

 unsatisfying though it be, is complete. The "ten men" were no doubt 

 sufficiently notorious when the monument was made to render further 

 definition superfluous, though the tradition of them is now wholly lost. The 



' O.S. Letters, loc. cit., p. 559. 



