402 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
The inscription appears to have been recently touched for the 
purpose of making the letters more distinct. 
The Mac is present in this inscription as well as the Roman 
films, a circumstance which exhibits evidence that the monument 
was erected when the prefix Mac was losing its distinguished 
feature, and was becoming incorporated as part of the name. 
There is still in Cornwall the name of Odogherty. It would be 
curious if this should be the modern representative of the Odecheti 
of this ancient rude monument, the Mac being only a prefix 
signifying the " son of." 
Dr. Ferguson remarks (Royal Irish Academy, November 29th 
and December 8th, 1873), that " the value of this inscription, 
although unaccompanied by any Ogham as corroborative of the 
proofs already adduced, consists in this, that the name or designation 
which it presents is ' echoed,' so to speak, in several instances by 
Irish Ogham texts read by the same key. The first of these, which 
for many years has been in the Academy's lapidary museum, comes 
from Corkaquinny in Kerry. It bears the legend Maqqi Decedda 
on one side, and Maqqi Catufi[r] on the other. The second lies 
in that rich repository of Ogham inscriptions, the disused burying- 
ground of Ballintagart, near Dingle, also in Kerry. Its legend 
reads on one side, Ifaqi Deccod[a]; and on the other, Caqosi 
Ceccudo[ros]. The third is at Killen-Cormac in Kildare, noticed by 
Mr. Shearman in our proceedings, loc. cit. (vol. ix. p. 253), and there 
are others elsewhere which I have not myself seen. This argument 
has lately been pressed on the attention of the Welsh Archaeologists 
by Mr. Brash, who has compared the Irish examples with the 
legend, ic jacet Maccudecetti, at Penros Llygwy in Anglesea. But 
it has been assumed that the Penros monument commemorates a 
known personage, Machutus son of Eccwyd. Such an explanation 
seems difficult of application to the very Irish sounding Sarin, as I 
would read it of the Maccodecheti monument at Tavistock. What 
may be the meaning of the name or designation I do not pretend 
to explain. 
If it were confined to Ireland, one might suppose it to designate 
a person of a particular family, as in the case, for example, of 
Duftac Macidugar, the contemporary of St. Patrick ; but it is hard 
to conceive how the family of the clan Degaid could have spread 
into Anglesea and Devon, unless indeed it should appear that they 
were a family in religion, and that the formula indicated an order." 
