Oghamica : in a letter to J.G.A. Prim, Esq. / by Samuel Ferguson.
- Samuel Ferguson
- Date:
- 1873
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Oghamica : in a letter to J.G.A. Prim, Esq. / by Samuel Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
12/14 page 10
![with Mr. Herbert, even though we accepted ‘ Maqi Mucoi’ as equivalent to ‘Christi de grege porcus,’ either that there had been any defection from the true faith in the Christianity with which we should believe the formula to be associated, or that it was of a date in any way dependent on the departure of the Homans from Britain. It would be difficult to conceive of an inquiry more attractive to the historical and philosophic student, than would be opened up by finding authentic remains of those ‘ Scoti in Christo credentes’ for whose govern- ment—possibly for whose correction—Palladius was sent hither in a.d. 429. Yet it is within the bounds of a reasonable probability that among some of these Ogham legends we may find material for that investigation. Consider, in this connection, the existence of those populations called Cagots and Caqiieux, inFrance, and Marrans, or swine, in the adjoining dis- tricts of Spain, who used to enter church by a separate door, and sit apart at worship, and whose burying grounds, like the Ogham-bearing Killeens of Ireland, were regarded as unfit for the reception of the general dead; and compare the supposed reason for their isolation, (that they formerly were lepers,) with the possible solution in old ecclesiastical antipathies, suggested as well by what has been said above as by the fact of their being desig- nated contumeliously by the derisive name of Chrestiacis. (‘Hist, des Races Maucl its de la Prance et de l’Espagne,’ per Prancisqu e-Michel, Paris, Franck. 1847.) Certainly no one can overlook the essential difference between the oroit ar, and oroitdo of the Irish conventional Christian inscriptions of the seventh and succeeding centuries, and the simple patronymical record of the Ogham formula—A son of B, without admitting a presumption that they belong, if not to different developments, at least to different periods of Christianity in Ireland. Reverting to the word ‘ Mucoi,’ it is rarely found unaccompanied by a preceding ‘ Maqi.’ One example of its exceptional use, so far as the position of the stone bearing the inscription enables me to judge, is in that legend at the old Church of Claragh, of your own discovery— Tasegagni Mucoi Maqr [ette?]. It is much to be desired that this stone should be taken out of the gable of the church in which it is now imbedded too deeply to admit of its characters being further traced or reproduced in a paper-cast. It might, if not inscribed on the back, be replaced with such a projection from the face of the wall as would expose all its Ogham-bearing arrises. Respecting the wide extension of the formula ‘Maqi Mucoi/ Mr. Brash has recently, in correcting an erroneous reading of my own, recog- nized it for the first time in Britain, on the Ogham legend at Bridell, in Pembrokeshire. Had its presence on that monument been known to Mr. Herbert, it would have been a substantial addition to his proofs. I cannot conclude without expressing my admiration for the zeal which has assembled so many objects of high archteological interest in your Museum, and secured for those objects means of exhibition so com- modious and even elegant. To have achieved these ends in a provincial city of Ireland bespeaks eminent ability, and a noble ardour in the pur- suit of knowledge. Kilkenny has now been made as distinguished a centre](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22458451_0014.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
