Provenance
Discovery: Found in 1982 by workmen doing drainage work. It was first brought to Cork Public Museum but is now part of the NMI collection (Power 1997, 166).
Findspot: Bunkilla (Bun Coille), Co. Cork, Ireland (ITM Coordinates: 551963, 580904)
Current repository: Ireland National Museum of Ireland (inv. no. 1983.3)
Last recorded location(s): This stone is in the National Museum of Ireland, where it was examined and recorded, in collaboration with the Discovery Programme, for the Ogham in 3D project in 2015.
Support
National Monuments Service SMR ID: CO061-074----
Object type: Pillar
Material: Sandstone
Dimensions: H 2.20 × W 0.30 × D 0.15 m
Condition: A long narrow stone tapering and stained brown at the top.
Inscription
Text field: Seemingly a palimpsest. The earlier inscription appears to have been pocked on three angles and a later one cut on one angle.
Letters: The ogham strokes are quite finely scored in the ‘Cork style’. The X- forfid is used in this inscription, apparently with vocalic value /e/, rather than its consonantal value /k/ or /x/. With this vocalic usage, ‘late linguistic features tend to be more frequent’. There is also ‘a correlation with this usage and that of the ANM formula, which is also symptomatic of late date’ (McManus 1991, 79; Swift 1997, 83-90). The earlier inscription appears to have been pocked.
Edition
Ogham text: ᚐᚅᚋ vac.
Transcription: ANM vac. MAQQILASIRE MAQQI BIRRAC
Critical apparatus:
- Lankford (1993, 6-7) proposed two possible readings of the inscription: ANM MAQQI-LASIR K[O]I MA(Q)QI BIR(R)AC(I)AS ; ANM MAQQI-LASIRE(O)N MAQQI BIR(R)ACIAS However, some of the letters read by Lankford may be from an earlier inscription on the stone. 2. Extra space appears to have been left between the initial formula word ANM and the following personal name. This phenomonen is found elsewhere in the ogham corpus (e.g. I-KER-100, Cunburrin, Co. Kerry and I-COR-069, Monataggart I, Co. Cork). However, in this case it could just as easily be an example of letter division, distinguishing the final M of ANM and the initial M of MAQQI. The use of space in ogham to distinguish letters and words has been discussed by Moffat (2011, 290).
Translation
name/inscription of Mac-Laisre son of Berrach
Commentary
The personal name Mac-Laisre is well attested later and contains Old Irish las(s)ar, g. laisre ‘flame, fire’. The name Berrach is also attested later and occurs as BIRACO (leg. -I) in I-COR-038 (Ballyknock, Co. Cork).
References
- Power, Byrne, Egan, Lane, and Sleeman 1997, no. 7955
- Moffat 2011-2012, 281-294