119 



in investigation, nor do I usually attach much importance to them ; 

 but in this instance, where, without doing any violence to the structure 

 of words, we find one language interpreting another so aptly, according 

 to the very physical features and productions of a country, we are bound 

 to attach some value to them, were it only as corroborative evidence. 



The topography of southern Spain is intensely Gaedhelic. Many of 

 its rivers, streams, lakes, hills, and other physical features, are called 

 by names which can only be interpreted by that language ; while the 

 peasantry themselves, in their character, customs, and superstitions, are 

 a similar race to our own. In addition, there is corroborative evidence 

 in the strong sympathies existing, from time immemorial, between the 

 people of the south and west of Ireland and the Spaniards, in the con- 

 stant intercourse from the most ancient times continued down to late 

 medieval times ; and in the ethnological affinities between the people 

 of various parts of the west and south- west coast of Ireland and those 

 of Spain ; not of the Biscayans or Catalans, who were of the Gothic 

 race, but of the Andalucians, who were of the Eastern type. 



I have before stated that it was not my intention to broach any 

 theory on this important subject ; my desire has been rather to indicate 

 a line of investigation that has suggested itself to me from the various 

 considerations I have already adduced. I trust that this much-ne- 

 glected subject will receive from the members of this Academy that 

 attention to which I believe it is entitled, from its bearing upon an 

 obscure era of our national history. 



XXIII. — Observations on Mr. Brash's Paper "On the Ogham 

 Chamber of Drtjmlohan." By the Eight Eev. Charles Graves, 

 D.D., Lord Bishop of Limerick. 



[Made November 30, 1867.] 



The Bishop of Limerick, in moving that Mr. Brash's paper be re- 

 ferred to the Council for publication, observed that the thanks of the 

 Academy were due to Mr. Brash for his detailed description of the 

 Drumlohan cave, and the Ogham monuments contained in it. To such 

 an acknowledgment Mr. Brash would not be disentitled if it should 

 hereafter appear that he had fallen into some errors in his copying and 

 deciphering of the inscriptions. In ordinary cases, Oghams, being of 

 a great antiquity, have been more or less defaced by the action of the 

 weather, if not in other ways ; but special difficulties stand in the way 

 of copying inscriptions on monuments built, like those described by Mr. 

 Brash, into the walls and roof of an underground gallery, without any 

 attempt being made to leave the inscribed edges visible. The Bishop 

 stated that his own drawings of the Ogham inscriptions in the cave at 

 Dunloe had undergone some important corrections on the occasion of a 

 second visit to the place. Comparisons of the names appearing in them 



