O'GHAMS, the name given to the letters or signs of a secret alphabet long in use among the Irish and some other Celtic nations. Neither the-origin nor the meaning of the name has been satisfactorily explained.
The alphabet itself is called bealuisnin, or bealuis, from its first two letters, "b," called "berth" (birch), and "/," called "leis" (quicken). Its characters are lines, or groups of lines, deriving their significance from their position on a single stem or chief line— over, under, or through which they are drawn either straight or oblique. In some cases, the edge of the stone or other substance on which the oghams are incised, serves the purpose of the stem or chief line. About eighty different forms of the alphabet are known. Five characters were afterwards added to represent diphthongs: The sign for the diphthong. "ea" is said to be the only one which has been observed on ancient monu ments. It is added that the sign for " ui" sometimes stands for "y," that the sign for "ia" sometimes stands for "p,'' and that the sign for "cte" stands also for "x," for "cc," for "dr," for "ach," and for "wit." Ogham inscriptions generally begin from the bottom, and are read upward from left to right to the top, when they are carried, over, and run down another side or angle. Most of those which have been read give merely a proper name with its patronymic, both in the genitive case. The stones on which oghams are cut would seem, for the most part, to have been sepulchral. Oghams are of most frequent occurrence in Ireland, w_liere they are found both written on books and inscribed on stones, metals, or bones. The ogliams on stones are most numerous in the counties of Kerry and Cork. A few ogliam inscriptions on stones have been discovered in Wales—as at St: Dogmael's, in Pembrokeshire; near Margam, in Glamorganshire; and near Crickhowel, in Brecknock shire. There are a few in Scotland, as on the Newton stone and the Log,ie stone in Aberdeenshire, on the Golspie stone in Sutherland, and on the Bressay stone in Shetland. One has been found in England—at Fardcl, in Devonshire. Ogliams have been observed on an ancient MS. of Priscian, which belonged to the monastery founded in the 7th c. by the Irish missionary St. Gall(q.v.).
The difficulties of deciphering ogham inscriptions cannot be said to have been as yet altogether overcome. It is confessed by the most learned and judicious of ogham scholars, the Rev. Charles Graves, p.p., of Trinity college, Dublin. that the nature of the character is such that it does not at once appear which, of four different ways of read ing, is the right one; that the words being written continuously, as in ancient MSS., there is great chance of error in dividing them; and that the Celtic names inscribed are generally Latinized in such a manner as not readily to be recognized.'
The old school of Irish antiquaries contended that the oghams were of Persian or Phenician origin, and were in use in Ireland long before the introduction of Christianity. But this theory is now generally discarded, as not only unsupported, but as contradicted by facts. A comparison of the Ogham alphabet with the alphabets of Persepolis and Carthage shown that there is .no likeness between them,,' - Thereat majority of ogham monuments, it has been observed, bear more or leas distinct markS of Christian hands.
Several are inscribed with crosses, as old, to all appearance, as the oghams themselves. Many stand in Christian burying-grounds, or beside Christian cells or oratories. Some still bear the names of primitive saints. At least one is inscribed with a Christian name; and some of the inscriptions betray an undeniable knowledge of Latin. At the same time, it has been argued by one of the most learned of Celtic philologists, Mr. Whitely Stokes, that "the circumstance that genuine ogham inscriptions exists both in Ireland and in Wales which present grammatical forms agreeing with those of the Gatilish lin guistic monuments, is enough to show that some of the Celts of the islands wrote their language before the 5th c., the time at•which Christianity is supposed to have been introduced into Ireland. It has been observed by Dr. Graves, on the other hand, that there are many points of resemblance between the oghams of the Celts and the Runes of the Norsemen; and, indeed, one Irish MS. asserts that the oghams came to Ireland from Scandinavia: " Hither was brought, in the sword sheath of Lochlan's king. • • The ogham across the sea. It was his own hand that cut it." The ogliam is said to have been in use so recently as the middle of the 17th c., when it was employed in the correspondence between king Charles I. and the earl of Glamorgan.
The best account of oghams is in the papers in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Amdeniy, by Dr. Graves, now bishop of Limerick, vol. iv. pp. 70, 173, 183, 254; vol. v. pp. 234, 401; vol. vi. pp. 71, 209, 24S, where also are sonic papers of value on the same subject by Mr. Samuel Fergusson; and the Catalogue of the Museum of the Royal frisk Academy, pp. 134-140; and in Mr. Whitley Stokes's Three _Irish, Glossaries, pp. 55-57, compared with Thomas Innes's Critical Essay on the Ancient inhabitants of Scotland, vol.
pp. 440-166. The reader may also consult with advantage Astle's Origin and Prog ress of 1Vriting; Petrie's Essay on the Round Towers of Ireland; John Stuart's Sculptured S.ones of Scotland, and Ware's Antiquities of Ireland. Ogham inscriptions may be seen in the museum of the royal Irish academy at Dublin, in the museum of the society of antiquaries of Scotland at Edinburgh, and in the British museum at London.