G G H A M. 
“ (Anomymi Hiberni) Tra&atus de variis apud Hib'T- 
nos vetere's occultls fcribendi formulis feu artificiis, Hi- 
bernice Ognrn diftis.” From this traCt Altle has given 
a plate of the different kinds of virgular oghams. 
This ogham, the Infhjeheaches, or antiquaries, repre- 
fent as the alphabetical charafter which was regularly 
ufed as fuch, and not as a cipher, by their Pagan anceftors 
long before the time of St. Patrick, to whom the intro¬ 
duction of letters into Ireland is generally afcribed. It is 
rather furpriftng therefore, that, before it was mentioned 
and defcribed by (ir James Ware, it (liould neither have 
attracted their notice, nor been the objeCt of their re- 
fearches. M‘Curtin, an hereditary antiquarian of the 
county of Clare, who died about the middle of the feven- 
teenth century, afferts, in his Irilh Grammar, that he had 
met with no lefs than thirty-two ways of writing this 
ogham ; “ fo common and well known (obferves Mr 
0 : Halloran, in bis Hiftory of Ireland) was it even then." 
But colonel Vallancey is difpofed to doubt whether thefe 
could be all alphabetical oghams; and, referring to the 
plate which Mr. Aftle has given, in his work on the Origin 
and Progrefs of Writing, of fuch oghams as he had difco¬ 
vered in Irifh MS. in Ireland, he gives it as his opinion, 
that only one is ancient: “fome,” he adds, “are the in¬ 
ventions of modern bards; but the mod are fcales of pro- 
fodia, originally drawn in circles, and from thence formed 
into right lines, at pleafure, to the number of 150 diffe¬ 
rent fcales, as fully defcribed in an ancient MS. in my 
poli'effion.” (Archscologia, vii. 227.) From not attend¬ 
ing to thiscircumftance, the Irifh bards fell into the mil- 
take, that the ancient Irifh had fo many different alpha¬ 
bets. This opinion, however, is direftly cppofite to that 
which is maintained by 0 ‘Flaherty, who, on the authority 
of Duald Firbifs, whom he chara&erifes as “ the only 
pillar and guardian of Irilh antiquities while he lived, 
and whofe death was an irreparable lofs to any further 
improvement on them,” maintains, that there were actually 
different forms of ogham characters of this fpccies to 
the number of one hundred and fifty ; of feveral of which 
Tuald Firbifs was in poffefiion ; and of which he wrote 
an account to 0 ‘Flaherty, and “of croabh ogham, i. e. 
virgean characters.” O'Fluherty’s Ogygia, tranflated by 
the Rev. James Hely, vol. ii. 
As, however, the very high antiquity of the virgean 
ogham could not well be proved, unlefs it were found 
cn fome of the Irifh monuments oraltars, the refearches 
of the Irifh antiquarians were direfled to them. About 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, a monument at 
New Grange, in the county of Meath, a fhort diftance 
from the river Boyne, was difcovered : feveral of the rude 
ftones which compofe it are decorated with a variety of 
devices, circular, zigzag, and diamond-fhaped; many of 
the ftones on each fide of th tadel have fimilarrude marks 
upon them, and one of them has fpiral zigzags. Soon 
after the difcovery of this monument, the Irifh antiqua¬ 
ries proclaimed to the world that they had found the 
ogham characters; but no refemblance to letters or cha¬ 
radlers can be traced by impartial and cool obfervers ; 
and fir Richard Colt Hoare, in his Journal of a Tour 
through Ireland, exprefsly ftates, that the marks which 
he obferved on many of the ftones bore very little refem¬ 
blance to letters, and a great fimilarity to the ornaments 
that lie bad found in the ancient Brilifh urns difcovered 
under the tumuli in Wiltfhire (p. 256) ; and Mr. Edward 
Llhwyd, who yielded to no man in zeal for the antiqui¬ 
ties of the Celtic tribes, while be united an uncommon 
degree of coolnefs and judgment with his antiquarian 
fondnefs and knowledge, though he defcribes the monu¬ 
ment at New Grange very particularly, does not even con¬ 
jecture that the rude carvings on the ftones were letters 
or ogham charadlers. 
In the Irifh Grammar of colonel Vallancey, a paffage 
is quoted from an Irifh MS. which ftates, that “Fiacra 
was mortally wounded at the battle of Caonry; his fune¬ 
ral leac/it , or ftone, was eredted; and on his tomb was in- 
42? 
fcribed his ogham name.” But, though this appears 
fufficient evidence and guide to lead to the difcovery of 
an ancient ogham infcription (if the monument wereftill 
in exiftenee), it does not feem that the tomb of this hero 
was fought after by any Irifh antiquary. At laft, about, 
the year 1780, a difcovery was made, which fatisfied 
colonel Vallancey, and all true Irilkantiquaries, that the 
virgean ogham was a regular alphabetical character, and 
that it exifted, and was in general ufe, long before the 
coming of St. Patrick into Ireland. Having thus, in their 
opinion, traced back the virgean ogham to an antiquity 
higher than the era of the introdudlion of Chriftianity 
into Ireland, they fuppofed they had advanced a confi.le- 
rable ftep towards putting it beyond a doubt that its ori¬ 
gin was Druidic. This fuppofed difcovery was made by 
Mr. 0 ‘Flanagan, at that time a ftudent of Trinity col¬ 
lege, Dublin. We (hall give the fubftance of what he fays, 
in a paper read before the Royal Irifh Academy, on the 
19th of December, 1785, refpeCting the circumftances 
which led to the difcovery ; and the interpretations of 
the infcription which he offers. Being perfectly ac¬ 
quainted with the various dialeCts of the Irilh language, 
he amufed himfelf with reading many of the legends both 
in prole and verfe; in one of the latter, afcribed to O lian, 
he met with the following paffage: “The fierce and 
mighty Conan was not in the defperate battle of Gabhra ; 
for, in May the preceding year, the dauntlel's hero was 
treacheroufly flain by the Fenii of Fin, at an affembly 
met to worfhip the fun: his fepulchral monument was 
raifed in the north-weft. His wailing dirge was lung, 
and his name is infcrihed in ogham characters on a flat 
ftone, on the very black mountain of Callan.” 
The firft objeCt which Mr. O'Flanagan difcovered or» 
mount Callan, which is about nine miles from Ennis, was 
a Druid altar ; but this had not the fmalleft traces of any 
characters appearing on it; though it might have- been 
fuppofed, that here, if any where, the Druidic ogham, 
would have been engraved. At laft his zeal was re¬ 
warded : about a mile north-eaft of the altar, a cottager 
informed him, that there was a ftone “ not unlike atomb- 
ftone, having ftrokes engraven thereon very unlike let¬ 
ters.” As Mr. 0 ‘Flanagan had negleCted to take his 
grammar with him, he was not thoroughly prepared to 
colled the entire fenl'e of the infcription; but, from the 
rules in his memory, he deciphered it in the following 
manner : Fan licjt ta Conan Col^ac cos-fador: “ Beneath 
this ftone is Conan the Fierce, the Long-legged.” On 
his return home, and confulting the rules given by 
colonel Vallancey, in his Grammar for deciphering the 
ogham characters, he found the meaning to be Fan li 
dijica Conan Colgac cof-obmda: “ Beneath this ftone is laid 
Conan the Fierce, the Nimble-footed.” Had Mr. O'Fla¬ 
nagan refted contented with this improved verfion, he 
could not have afforded room for entirely difbelieving 
the exiltence of ogham characters on this monument; 
but, anxious to prove that this kind of writing was not 
only very ancient, but had a wonderful fuperiority, in 
the comprehenfivenefs of its meaning, to any fet of alpha¬ 
betical or ftenographic characters known, he has afforded 
grounds for molt rational and complete fcepticifm. 
It appears from this gentleman’s account, that, even 
with the affiftance of the rules contained in colonel Val- 
lancey’s Irilh Grammar for deciphering the ogham cha¬ 
racter, he found fome difficulty in making out thennean- 
ing of the infcription on this monument; and, while 
he was muffing over it, Mr. Burton, a friend who had 
accompanied him to Callan, “calling to mind that the 
Phoenicians, from whom the Irifh derived their origin, 
generally write from the right hand to the left, took the 
letters backwards ; i. e. in a contrary direction from that 
in which we had deciphered them.” By this contrivance 
a fecond reading was found, which, wonderful to relate, 
not only made good fenfe, and had reference to the 
fame hero, but proved a continuation of the firft reading. 
A common antiquarian would have been content with 
thefe 
