255 



Fig. 2. 



I 



monument of such extreme antiquity and rareness in that part of Ire- 

 land, which he regarded as fully explored. Being, however, at Killeen 

 Cormac on an October evening, in 1860, which was showery, with in- 

 tervals of bright sunshine, and then 

 examining these monuments, the de- 

 pressions of the Roman letters, being 

 filled with water, and glistening under 

 the setting sun, enabled him to read 

 distinctly the words I VYE -EEDBYV- 

 IDES, and excited a most lively in- 

 terest in the discovery. Bubbings 

 were then made, and since that time 

 very frequently, and more carefully. 



This remarkable discovery was 

 communicated to the late Eugene 

 0' Curry, and also to the Bev. James 

 Graves, Hon. Sec. to the Kilkenny 

 Archaeological Society, who urged the 

 writer to make it public ; which he 

 was not then willing to do, for want 

 of sufficient information regarding the 

 locality and its history. After this he 

 set about collecting the history and 

 legends connected with this cemetery 

 in every quarter likely to afford infor- 

 mation. Subsequent inquiries brought 

 to the surface many traditions of much 

 interest, which were all but forgotten ; 

 and it is much to be regretted that si- 

 milar investigations have not been 

 made in other historic localities, as yet 

 unexplored, by persons having the 

 same facilities as the writer ; as these 

 traditions, if not soon collected, seem 

 to be doomed to oblivion among the 

 rising generation of our countrymen. 



At the time these rubbings were 

 made the writer was not acquainted 

 with the force or phonetic value of 

 the Ogham characters, nor does he 

 now take it on himself to say that the 

 Ogham is an equivalent for the Eoman 

 inscription ; but in connexion with the word DRV VIDES, it has been 

 suggested that there is a combination of Ogham characters reading 

 the word SAEI, which is most probably the Irish equivalent of the 

 DRYVIDES of the Eoman or Latin inscription. At the first reading 

 of this inscription, its great novelty gave ample room for speculation, 



