r--When did the Irish
begin to have a knowledge of letters; when did they begin to commit
their literature to writing; and whence did they borrow their
knowledge of this art?

The oldest alphabet used in Ireland of which remains exist appears to
have been the Ogam, which is found in numbers of stone inscriptions
dating from about the third century of our era on. About 300 such
inscriptions have already been found, most of them in the southwest
of Ireland, but some also in Scotland and Wales, and even in Devon
and Cornwall. Wherever the Irish Gael planted a colony, he seems to
have brought his Ogam writing with him.

The Irishman who first invented the Ogam character was probably a
pagan who obtained a knowledge of Roman letters. He brought back to
Ireland his invention, or, as is most likely, invented it on Irish
soil. Indeed, the fact that no certain trace of Ogam writing has been
found upon the European continent indicates that the alphabet was
invented in Ireland itself. An inscription at Killeen Cormac, Co.
Kildare, survives which seems to show that the Roman alphabet was
known in Ireland in pagan times. Ogam is an alphabet suitable enough
for chiselling upon stones, but too cumbrous for the purposes of
literature. For this the Roman alphabet must have been used. The Ogam
script consists of a number of short lines straight or slanting, and
drawn either below, above, or through one long stem-line. This
stem-line is generally the sharp angle between two faces or sides of
a long upright rectangular stone. Thus four cuts to the right of the
long line stand for S; to the left of it they mean C; passing through
it, half on one side and half on the other, they mean Z. The device
was rude, but it was applied with considerable skill, and it was
undoubtedly framed with much ingenuity. The vowels occurring most
often are also the easiest to cut, being scarcely more than notches
on the edge of the stone. The inscription generally contains the name
of the dead warrior over whom the memorial was raised; it usually
begins on the left corner of the stone facing the reader and is to be
read upwards, and it is often continued down on the right hand
angular line as well.

The language of the Ogam inscriptions is very ancient and nearly the
same forms occur as in what we know of Old Gaulish. The language, in
fact, seems to have been an antique survival even when it was first
engraved, in the third or fourth century. The word-forms