330 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



the known inscriptions have been found in Ireland. The total number of 

 known inscriptions appears to be about 360. 



Of the Irish inscriptions, numbering about 300, five-sixths have been 

 found in the counties of Kerry, Cork, and Waterford. 



Kerry has about 120, or one-third of the total. Of these more than 

 60 are congregated in the small and mountainous barony of Corcaguiny, the 

 western extremity of Ireland, and more than 20 in the adjoining barony of 

 North Dunkerron. 



Cork county has about 80, of which more than 20 are found in the 

 barony of East Muskerry. 



Waterford county has about 40, and of these three-fourths are in the 

 barony of Decies-without-Drum. 



Thus more than one-third of the known Irish oghams have been found 

 in four baronies. 



A small number are found in Ossory and East Meath. Throughout the 

 rest of Ireland, instances are only sporadic. N'one are known in the 

 counties of Donegal, Down, Galway, Sligo, Longford, Westmeath, and 

 Queen's County. 



Scotland has 1 in the island of Gigha in the Southern Hebrides, and 

 15 in Pictland, the north-eastern region, including Orkney and Shetland ; 

 none in the West Highlands, the Xorthern Hebrides, Argyll, or the 

 Lowlands. 



The Isle of Man has 6. 



Wales has about 26, of wdiich 13 are in Pembrokeshire, 12 in the 

 remainder of South Wales, only 1 in Xorth Wales. 



In Devon and Cornwall there are 5 ; in Hampshire 1, on the site of the 

 Eoman town of Calleva, now Silchester ; in the rest of England none.^ 



Xone have been found on the Continent, but at Biere in Saxony there 

 are stone tablets bearing unintelligible syllables traced in Ogham characters, 

 possibly the work of some wandering Gael who knew just a little of the 

 craft. 



All the inscriptions that have been deciphered and interpreted belong to 

 the same language — an early form of Irish — except a few in Xorth-eastern 

 Scotland, which are said to be in the Pictish language. 



The distribution of the inscriptions clearly corresponds to the region of 

 Gaelic, or, as it was then caUed, Scottic, influence in the period that followed 

 the withdrawal of the Eoman legions from Britain. The frequency of 

 oghams in South Munster and Pembrokeshire, and their rare yet very wide 



^ The British figures are those given by Rhys, J, 1902, p. 1. 



