231 



Sheet No. IV. exhibits two interlacing knots accompanied by 

 the (prehistoric ?) cross, and displays a design formed of two vertical 

 scores crossed at right angles by a third. All these designs are 

 deeply cut. 



Sheet No. Y. Here are two primitive crosses, (figs. 1 and 2), 

 and two carvings, which have an alphabetic look. This group is 

 quite detached from any other carving. 



Sheet No. VI. Whatever may be thought of the age and cha- 

 racter of the simply scored crosses, and of similar markings enclosed 

 within lozenge or rectangular figures, which the cave exhibits, and 

 which have been just noticed, there can be little doubt amongst an- 

 tiquaries that the interlacing cross here shown must be referred to 

 early Christian times. It occurs upon the left-hand side, not far from 

 the entrance, and is beautifully and deeply engraved. Immediately 

 beneath the left arm of the cross in early Irish character, firmly cut, 

 is the letter D, followed by two strokes, which indicate that other 

 letters had followed. Unfortunately at this place the rock has been 

 greatly scratched and rubbed by modern visitors. The letters were 

 probably D N I, a form of dedication, not unfrequently met with on 

 pillarstones in the south of Ireland. I do not wish to hazard any un- 

 necessary speculation in connexion with this curious inscription, but 

 should the rubbing come under the notice of the Lord Bishop of 

 Limerick, his Lordship, from intimate knowledge of the subject, would 

 probably be able to throw light upon the ogham, or oghamic writing 

 which accompanies it, and which appears to possess a very distinctly 

 marked character. 



That a cave in many respects so interesting, and, as its scars attest, 

 so frequently resorted to by " excursionists," should not have hitherto 

 attracted the notice of an antiquary, is a fact scarcely to be accounted 

 for. True it is that about six years ago Mr. P. Magennis, a master under 

 the National Board of Education, who lives near the eastern cliff of 

 Knockmore, in a laudable thirst for investigation, made an attempt 

 to copy some of the carvings. He then entered into correspondence 

 with several gentlemen interested in archaeological inquiry — with 

 the Rev. James Graves amongst others. Mr. Graves, with his cha- 

 racteristic zeal, caused the drawings, or 4 a portion of them, to be laid be- 

 fore Professor George Stephens, F. S. A., who, in a letter from Copen- 

 hagen, Denmark, dated Dec. 16, 1861, described them as representing 

 " Scribbles of the Northmen, Wild Eunes, and Blind Runes," not 

 now decipherable. Mr. Magennis, who kindly accompanied me to 

 the cave, was very willing to acknowledge that his attempt to copy 

 the lines was anything but successful. There are at any rate no 

 " scorings" at present in the place from which the rubbing or " dia- 

 gram," as copied in a woodcut in the Kilkenny Journal, from which 

 Professor Stephens appears to have drawn his deduction, could have been 

 traced. The carvings are all varieties of well-known Irish work — some 

 of them probably of the age of the stone chambers — and the interlacing 



