Provenance
Discovery: Found buried with just the top above ground at Kiltera/Cill Tíre burial ground (WA029-042002-) by Michael Beary of Dungarvan in 1908 (Power 1909, 78). Cill Tíre is ía possible early ecclesiastical site although there is no visible evidence of a church. Marked as a D-shaped graveyard (dims. c. 35m N-S; c. 40m E-W) with the straight edge at the west on the 1840 ed. of the OS 6-inch map. This was the second ogham stone discovered at the site with Dromore 1 (I-WAT-005) known since 1861. A thrid stone, Dromore 3 (I-WAT-007), was later discovered during excavtion, along with a fragment of an ogham stone (I-WAT-L01) with one letter (possibly D or L. Macalister 1935, 8), but its whereabouts is now unknown.
Findspot: Kiltera/Kilteera (Cill Tíre), Dromore (An Drom Mór), Co. Waterford, Ireland (ITM Coordinates (approximate): 610460, 591390)
Last recorded location(s): Remains in situ. Examined and recorded in 3D by Discovery Programme in 2014 as part of the Ogham in 3D project.
Support
National Monuments Service SMR ID: WA029-042006-
Object type: Pillar
Material: Sandstone
Dimensions: H 1.30 × W 0.41 × D 0.25 m
Condition: In relatively good condition apart from the very top iof the stone, which is quite weathered and uneven.
Inscription
Text field: Inscribed upwards on two angles of a narrow face, starting on the right rather than the more usual left. The last few characters run across the face of the stone to the left, in a similar manner to the end of the inscription on Dromore 1 (I-WAT-005)
Letters: The inscription is pocked. The strokes are quite large and, at times, unevenly spaced. The vowel strokes are generally shorter and easily distinguished, except the last few letters, which are on the face of the stone rather than on the arris and the intended position of the stem-line is unclear.
Edition
Ogham text: ᚋᚓᚇᚒᚄᚔ ᚋᚐᚉᚔ ᚂᚒ[.. ? ..
Transcription: MEDUSI MACI LỤ[.. ? ..] MO vac. C vac. OI ḶỤG̣Ạ
Critical apparatus:
- Macalister (1945, 263) suggested that the scribe found that he had made a mistake (having written MACI for MUCOI), and so he began again on the second angle, and wrote the corrected version (MUCOI LUGA, compare Dromore 1 I-WAT-005). He also hints at the uncertainty around the last name, which veers off to the left across the face, noting that ‘the consonant G and its flanking vowels are not as carefully differentiated as they might have been’. Power (1909, 79) also mentioned the difficulty in deciphering the last name and tentatively read: MEDUSI MACI LU MUCOI LAQ 2. Also noted by Power (1909, 79) is the uneven spacing in the word MOCOI, with 3 inches of blank space before the C and 2.5 inches after. He suggests this may be to avoid uneven surface on the stone but, at least before the C, the surface seems relatively even. Although there is more than enough space for a U after the intial M, only two vowel strokes are evident. Both Macalister and Power read U here, although Power does note that it could be an O.
Translation
of Medus? (son of Lu…?), of the sept/litter of Lug?
References
- Macalister 1935, 1-16
- Macalister 1945, 261-262, 263-264
- Moore 1999, 172, 197
- Power 1909, 77-80