168 



in Irish monuments of a cognate kind, wherever we find the combi- 

 nation of Ogham characters which sounds " Maqi, v we may expect, 

 before it, the name of the person commemorated, and, after it, the 

 patronymic of that person. Such, in fact, is the formula of commemo- 

 ration found on great numbers of the Irish Ogham monuments. The 

 writer instances in our own lapidarian Museum, No. 7, Qunilogni Maqi 

 D * * *; JSfocati Maqi, Maqi Rett * *, No. 11; and in Mr. Du Noyer's 

 collection Logoqi Maqi JErenan (Du Noyer MSS. Lib. R. I. A., vol. i., 

 No. 43). Ere Maqi Maqerti, ibid., No. 27; Lafi cas Maqi Muce, ibid., 

 No. 27) ; and numerous similar examples in the publications of the other 

 Irish Archasological Societies. 



The presence of this well-known combination of strokes and notches, 

 reading maqi, at the western end of the legend on the inner edge of the 

 Eathcroghan stone, taken in connexion with the other indications of that 

 being the lower end of the stone, and with the generally observed rule 

 that these inscriptions read from bottom to top, and from left to right, 

 leaves no reasonable doubt that the remainder of that line contains the 

 patronymic, and the line on the opposite side the name, of the person com- 

 memorated. Reverting to the opposite side, and reading it from bottom to 

 top, and from left to right, and according to the ordinary key, it presents a 

 combination of characters, of which - r - cci are free from doubt, and of 

 which it is not impossible that the three strokes occupying the place of 

 the first blank represent e, and the notches occupying the place of the 

 second blank stand for ai ; in which case this part of the legend would 

 read fraicct. The difficulty in respect to the first set of characters arises 

 from a fracture of the stone, which leaves it in doubt whether the third 

 stroke crossed the line of the edge. In that case, the reading would be 

 omr - cci. The six notches represented by the second blank may either 

 be a double u, or may read eo, or oe, or in any of the combinations of 

 atjo. The name, whatever it be, seems to be in the genitive form, and 

 to imply some such expression as u the stone of" before it. 



Leaving this portion of the inscription, and coming to the patronymic, 

 it is certainly startling to find it read, as it does in this collocation and 

 sequence, without doubt or difficulty, 



MEDFEI, 



— that is, collating the several parts of the legend, 



"(The stone of) [Fraic?] son of Medf." 

 The second inscription is found on one of the lintels covering the 

 eastern passage, marked B on Fig. 1. When first observed, four of the 

 characters and part of the fifth were hidden under the face of the stone, 

 where it lay bedded on the southern jamb of the passage ; and it was 

 not until it was raised, and turned on its side, that they were, for 

 the first time since the construction of the cave, offered to human ob- 

 servation. The appearance of the sculpture seems to indicate long ex- 

 posure to the weather prior to the deposit of the stone ; and goes to sup- 

 port the conjecture suggested by the ribbed appearance in the other, that 



