Ogham Stones

Ogham is the earliest form of writing in Irish, used from around the fourth to the seventh century. It is an alphabet of strokes and notches cut across or on either side of a stem line, which on a standing stone is usually the natural edge of the stone, read from the bottom left upward. Around four hundred inscribed stones survive, roughly three quarters of them in Munster and with the greatest concentration in Kerry and Cork. Almost all the inscriptions are names - X son of Y, or X of the tribe of Y - which makes them boundary and commemorative markers rather than texts, and they preserve the oldest recorded form of the Irish language. Many were later reused as building stone, and some stand in churchyards or were built into souterrains. The Stone Corridor at University College Cork holds around thirty in one place, which is the easiest way to see a range of them.

Highlights

• The edge carving - strokes and notches cut along the natural angle of the stone.
• The inscriptions - almost all personal names and lineages.
• The Munster concentration - three quarters of them in the south-west.
• The UCC Stone Corridor - around thirty stones collected indoors in Cork.

When to go

April to October for the field sites. Low raking light makes the notches far easier to see than flat overcast. The UCC collection is indoors and available year-round.

Good to know

Weathering has made many inscriptions almost unreadable. Most stones stand in fields or churchyards with no interpretation and no facilities. Access often crosses private land.

Nearby

Kilmalkedar and the Dingle peninsula hold several; the Stone Corridor is at UCC in Cork.