Provenance
Discovery: Macalister (1945, 11) writes ‘Mr. W. E. Kelly, who first noticed the inscription in 1897, records that a certain priest, Father McManus, re-erected the stone, then lying flat on the scrub-covered sandhills, where it still stands. It is possible that he set it upside down—this is suggested, by the inscription being on the sinister angle and also that he buried some of the letters in the ground’.
Findspot: Dooghmakeon (Dumhach Mhic Eoghain), Co. Mayo, Ireland (ITM Coordinates: 475069, 778600)
Last recorded location(s): Located in marram-grass covered dunes 120m east of the north end of Sruhir Strand. Burials and a midden are located 100m to to the west (Archaeological Survey of Ireland, Field Report 2017). 3D recorded as part of the Mayo Ogham project 2022, funded by The Heritage Council and Mayo County Council.
Support
National Monuments Service SMR ID: MA095-023002-
Object type: Cross-slab
Material: Limestone
Dimensions: H 1.32 × W 0.61 × D 0.15 m
Decoration: Macalister (1945, 11) describes a ‘cross pattee (cross-of-arcs), in a circle, pocked’ (diam. 0.36m) on the broad south face.
Condition: Macalister (1945, 11) remarked that the inscription is ‘so badly worn and weathered that practically nothing can be made of it—especially as more than half of the inscribed angle has been spalled away’.
Inscription
Text field: Macalister (1945, 11) noted that ‘there seems to have been an ogham inscription on the sinister edge’.
Edition
Transcription: [---]ỌṾỊ ṂẠQ̣Ị
Critical apparatus:
- Rhys (1898, 232) read: C̣ỌṚḄẠG̣ṆỊ 2. According to Macalister (1945, 11), ‘there is a suggestion of MAQI preceded by what looks like ]OVI, the O being on the ground-line. But really the marks are so faint that it is possible to read almost anything into them: I was, however, quite unable to verify Rhys’s suggestion, that remains of CORBAGNI were to be identified’. While ogham-like marks do appear on the relevant angle, neither of the previous readings are evident. It is possible, as noted by Macalister (1945, 11), that some of the inscription is beneath current ground level.
References
- Kelly 1897, 185-187
- Macalister 1945, 11
- Rhys 1898, 232