O G H 
A M. 
428 
thefe two readings ; not To Mr. O'Flanagan. On his ar¬ 
rival in Dublin he confulted the Book of Ballemote, from 
which he found there were different fcales of the ogham 
charafter, in each of which the number of fimilar Tines, 
on whatever fide drawn, did not exceed five. After 
having madehimfelf perfectly acquainted with this fcale, 
he again applied to the ftudy of the infcription ; when he 
drew from it no fewer than five different meanings. The 
fir ft has been already given. The fecond is, Na flida nica 
Conan Colgan eos-obmda: “ Ob feu re not the remains of 
Conan the Fierce, the Nimble-footed.” The third is, 
A dm ho focc agloc fan oca cif'a dil JSaf: “Long let him 
lie at eafe on the brink of this lake, beneath thefe hiero¬ 
glyphics, darling of the Sacred.” The fourth is, Adm 
bo focc ag loc na foe a cina del fan : “ Long let him lie at 
eafe on the brink of this lake, who never law his faithful 
clan depreffed.” The fifth and laft, is, Alm/io Cnffag dos 
la cu os aft a lid cuat: “ Hail with reverential forrow the 
drooping heath around his lamentable tomb.” On this 
infcription thus deciphered Mr. O'Flanagan makes the 
following remarks: “When all thefe various readings 
are united, there appears a rational beginning, continua¬ 
tion, and conclufion, of the fame fenfe. But what is ft ill 
more remarkable, the number of readings is the limit of 
the number of lines in the ogham fcale. The whole is 
in the ftyle and manner of the ancients, deferiptive both 
of the man and the place; and, though the language be 
very ancient, yet it is equally familiar and eafy to fuch 
as are well verfed in the feveral idioms and dialedts of the 
Irifh language.” 
Before proceeding to offer any remarks on the Callan 
infcription, and on Mr. O'Flanagan’s interpretation of it, 
v. e flaalL give the rules on which he contrived to bring out 
of it fuch copioufnefs of meaning. Had thefe rules been 
laid down in the Irifh Grammars, and in treatifes on the 
■deciphering of the ogham character, and had they been 
iiluftrated and confirmed by examples of undoubted an¬ 
tiquity, the infcription on the Callan monument, as in¬ 
terpreted by Mr. O'Flanagan, might have been received 
as afpecimen of the Druidic ogham, and as a proof, not 
only of the great antiquity, but of the wonderful inge¬ 
nuity, of this mode of writing: but, when we {hall find 
that the rules which Mr. O'Flanagan follower!, in inter¬ 
preting the infcription, were in the higheft degree arbi¬ 
trary, and which, if extended, might have elicited fifty 
meanings inftead of five, and would go to deftroy all cer¬ 
tainty in language, our doubts relpeCting the ogham 
character will be ftrengthened, and by no means removed, 
by the Callan infcription. In order to get the firff and 
fecond meanings, the infcription muff Ire deciphered 
from the broad to the narrow end of the ftone, or from 
left to right; the letters F and N being interchanged, 
whenever they occur, as the fenfe fhall direCt. The third 
and fourth readings are found by taking the two former 
Backwards (here the procefs is from right to left, com¬ 
muting the letters F and N as before.) The fifth and 
laft reading is made out “ by deciphering the ogham line 
from the (mail to the broad end of the ftone, changing 
its pofition, that the procefs may be from left to right. In 
this, neither of the letters F or N occurs, and therefore 
it admits of no further readings.” The reafon-which led 
Mr O'Flanagan to the commutation of the letters F and 
N, is equally whimfical and unfounded with every other 
liep in the procefs of interpreting this infcription. “ This 
commutability of the letters F and N depends on a cir- 
cumftance peculiar to the Irifh alphabet, it having two 
different arrangements : one of which begins with B, 
L, N, and is called Beithluifnion ; and the other with 
B, L, F, and called Beithluisfearn : the latter is peculiar 
to the ogham fifem; but, when it is necefi’ary for the con- 
ftru&ion, it does not totally rejeCt the former, which 
was the alphabet in common ufe until Greek and Roman 
literature vifited this country, and made the Irifh ar¬ 
range their alphabet, as far as it extended, conformably 
to their own.” And, in a fubfequent page, he obferves, 
“Obfcurity, and to contain much within a narrow corrt- 
pafs, was the purpofed end and object of the ogham ; 
Tor,from the conftruCtion, it contains much within a fmall 
fpace, and is ultimately founded on an alphabet of differ¬ 
ent characters, which is evident even from the explica¬ 
tion of the infcription before us, wherein the letters F 
and N (which are feverally reprefented by three and five 
perpendicular ftrokes below the horizontal mafter-line) 
are commutable, a property which they have not in any 
other part of our language ; this commutation depending, 
as has been already obferved, on the two different ar¬ 
rangements of the Irifh alphabets : and thus it is left to 
the reader’s choice, to which of the two letters, F or N, he 
will apply either of the aforefaid marks ; but the fenfe 
will always direCt him to the proper mode of application.” 
TranfaCtions of the Royal Irifh Academy for the year 
1787, vol. i. 
Having thus given a detailed account of the celebra¬ 
ted Callan infcription, of the interpretation which Mr. 
O'Flanagan has given of it, and of the rules which he 
has_ folio wed in deciphering it, w'e fhall offer a few remarks, 
which, if we are not miftaken, will not only go far to 
difprove the exiftence of an ogham infcription on this 
monument, or, granting its exiftence, the accuracy of 
the interpretation put upon it; but alfo the claim of the 
ogham character or alphabet to Druidic invention or an¬ 
tiquity. , 
In the firft place, Dr. Ledwich, in his Antiquities of 
Ireland, very pertinently and fairly afks, “ Can it be 
imagined that the Callan infcription has flood almoft 
1500 years (for the death of Conan is faid to have hap¬ 
pened in the year 295) in a naked and wild fituation, un¬ 
injured by the tooth of time, and all the viciffitudes of a 
variable climate? that the great Atlantic Ocean and its 
briny atmofphere have had no influence on this rock, and, 
fo far from pulverifing its furface, have rendered it ufeful 
for vegetation ?” Mr. O'Flanagan, indeed, in a note to 
his paper, p. 14, informs us, that, from the hard texture 
of the ftone, the infcription is perfectly legible ; but, in 
another place, he fays, that the ftones of this, monument 
are of the fame kind as thofe of the Druidic altar, and 
thofe he exprefsly deferibes as “gritty,” certainly not a 
kind of ftone likely to preferve entire the infcription on 
its furface. 
In the fecond place, two engravings are given of the 
Callan infcription, both by Mr. O'Flanagan; one in the 
feventh volume of the Archasologia, and the other in the 
firft volume of the TranfaCtions of the Irifh Academy. 
Now, whoever will compare, even in a curfory and fuper- 
ficial manner, thefe two engravings, will find that they 
materially differ. 
In the third place, Mr. O'Flanagan, in his paper in the 
Irifh TranfaCtions, as has been already noticed, fays, that 
his firft reading, Fan lief ta Conan Co/gac cos-fa da, was 
made out before he had an opportunity of confulting colo¬ 
nel Vallancey’s Grammar, and that it was afterwards found 
to be erroneous ; whereas, in his letters to that gentleman, 
publifhed in the feventh volume of the Archaeologia, he 
exprefsly fays, “ By the rules given for the ogham croab 
in M'Curtin’s Dictionary, and your Grammar, I deciplver 
this infcription in the following manner,” i. e. exactly in 
the manner which, in his paper in the Irifh Tran factions, 
he declares to be erroneous, and to have been the refuit 
of his deciphering it from memory. 
In the fourth place, though a general remark has been 
already offered on the very arbitrary and unfounded rules 
by which Mr. O'Flanagan proceeded in the interpretation 
of the infcription, yet a more detailed examination of 
them may be proper. Mr. O'Flanagan confeffes that “ the 
difeovery of the true fenfe of the infcription was princi¬ 
pally owing to the ingenious thought of Mr. Burton, with 
refpeCt to the reading backward ; which, whether it af- 
feCts the ancient literary fyftem of this country or not, at 
leaft was inftrumental in exciting me to thefearch, which 
I fhould otherwife have been apt to negleCt; for, finding 
a one 
