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Updated: June 16, 2025
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.
So they dismounted, and tied Enbarr to the branch of a tree, while they refreshed themselves with a mouthful of Toma's loaf; and Finola now put her thumb under her 'tooth of knowledge, for she wished new guidance and inspiration, and, being more than common modest, she said: "Inasmuch as we are fairer than all the other maydens in this labyrinth, why, since we cannot find the heart of the maze, do we not entice the invaders from their hiding-place by the quicken-tree; and when we see from what direction they advance, fall upon and slay them; and after raising the usual cairn to their memory, and carving their names over it in the customary Ogam, run to the enchanted tree and gather all the berries that are left?
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.
It reads, according to Mr. Brash, in the Ogam, "Safagguc the son of Cuic;" and, in the Roman, "Fanon the son of Rian." The three Irish Ogam stones were presented to the British Museum by Colonel A. Lane Fox, F.S.A., who dug them out of an ancient fort at Roovesmore, near Kilcrea, on the Cork Railway, where they were forming the roof of a subterranean chamber.
This availing nothing, Finola was forced to slay Bran with her straight-sided, silver-shining spear; but this she felt he would not mind if he could know that he would share the splendid fate of the stoat, and speedily have a cairn raised over him, with the word 'Bran' graven upon it in Ogam, since this is the consolation offered by the victorious living to all dead Celtic heroes; and if it be a poor substitute for life, it is at least better than nothing.
My own explanation of the Ogam system is that it represents the signs made with the fingers in cryptic speech, used as very simple for cutting on stone when the need for mystery was at an end, that is to say, in all probability, when Druidism was just dying out, and the practice of committing nothing to writing had ceased to be a religious observance.
Here they met an enormous white stoat, but this was slain by the intrepid Bran, and they buried its bleeding corse and raised a cairn over it, with the name 'Stoat' graven on it in Ogam; there a druidical fairy mist sprang up in their path to hide the way, but they pierced it with a note of their far-reaching, clarion-toned voices, an art learned in their native land beyond the wave.
With the introduction of Christianity and of Roman letters, the old Ogam inscriptions, which were no doubt looked upon as flavoring of paganism, quickly fell into disuse and disappeared, but some inscriptions at least are as late as the year 600 or even 800.
The Fardell stone was found about the year 1850, acting as a footbridge across a small brook at Fardell, near Ivybridge, Devonshire a district once inhabited by a Celtic tribe. It is of coarse granite, 6 ft. 3 in. high, 2 ft. 9 in. broad, and from 7 to 9 inches thick. It bears an Ogam inscription on two angles of the same face, and debased Roman characters on the front and back.
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 are probably far older than those used in the spoken language of the time.
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