366 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Heuce it is likely that Mac Liag denoted primarily a person devoted or 

 affiliated to the craft of inscribing oghams on the rude undressed pillar- 

 stones of the country. 



5. A somewhat different shade of meaning may be traced in names in 

 which maqi, mace, is followed by the name of a tree. Mac[i Cairatini = 

 Mace Gairthin, L. Arm., * son of rowantree.' So Mace I and Mace IhaAr, 

 'son of yew/ Mace CuUl, L. Arm., 'son of hazel/ Mace Dregin, ib., 'son 

 of blackthorn/ Mace Cuilinn, ' son of holly/ 3facc Darct, ' son of oak.' 

 Even in the Norman period the Irish changed Mac Piarais, ' son of Piers 

 (de Bermingham)/ into Mac Feorais, ' son of spindle-tree/ which is still 

 the Irish equivalent of the surname Bermingham. Here again a traditional 

 explanation is forthcoming. Keating, following older writers, says : Coll fa 

 dia do MJictc QvAll — ' Coll, hazel, was a god to Mac Cuill,' son of hazel. 

 In fact, these names arose from tree-worship, of which traces are still 

 extant throughout Ireland. 



6. A third class of names is that in which maqi, maec, is followed by the 

 name of a person, male or female. Here also worship or dedication seems to 

 be indicated. The frequent Maqi Ercias, Mace Erce [Ercae, Erca), refers to 

 a female Ere, a name which occurs in the BB list of legendary women. 

 Possibly the meaning is ' son of heaven,' crc .i. nem. Other names ap- 

 parently of this class are Maqi Decedas = Mace Bechet, Maqi lari (< Iveri ?) = 

 Mace lair (lar son of Dedu, eponymous ancestor of the Erainn = Clanda 

 Dedad), Maqi Qettia(s), Maqi Aiiiia(s), Maqi Retta (Recta, PJiys)/ Maqi 

 Nalg-geri '(, Maqi Riteas,^ Maqi Ddumileas,"' Maqi Treni, Maqi ftorini. 



7. Inigena = MS. ingen, ' daughter ' appears in the late gen. (i)nageii(e) 76, 

 where a seems to arise from a mistaken archaism.* 



8. The general usage of mucoi, :\is. moccu, has been shown by me in Eriu, 

 vol. iii, p. 42. It is followed by the genitive of the name of the eponymous 

 ancestor of the tuath to which the person commemorated belongs. By 

 prefixing ddl or corcic to this genitive, or by adding to the eponym the 

 suffix -rige, -ne, or -acht, the name of the tuath is formed ; but sometimes 

 the plural of the eponym serves as a name for the tuath. In MS. Irish, 

 moccu becomes indeclinable, and the data seem insufficient to establish the 

 usage of aspiration in the initial of the following name. 



9. The precise sense of mucoi has not been fixed. Macalister regards 

 mucoi as denoting an individual, and translates it by ' tribesman ' or 



1 MacSechto BB 85a9, 10. 2 Mocerithe BB 131a41, wgen 3InicBeitJ,i 22-ii3-^59. 



3 G£. maic Maic Demle BB 122al3, Finbarr Inchi Boimle 21o;844. 



* Macalister's reading- of ingene 194 must be rejected, as the consonant ng cannot stand for 

 n + g. 



t 



