O'FLAHERTY, RonEtno (1629 171s). An Irish born in \loy rullen Galway. Ile was educated in his native county, made a special study of Irish his tory and literature, and published the results in fa, set/ Rerum Ilibernica )14 m Chronohlgia the first schohrly work on the subject to react: England. Iris Chorographiml Descrip tion of Rest or Connaught was published by the Irish Society in and his letters were edited by J. T. Gilbert ( Oil:dimly lost his property through revolution ary of government, nail died in poverty at Parke, near Galway.
OG, ( Rob. probably connected with An Am oritish of Basham who is said to have lived at the time of the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan. The chief cities of his territory were Ashtaroth and Edrei, and be and his people were defeated at the hitter place by the half-tribe of _Manasseh which remained cast of the Jordan (Dent. P2). is represented as the hist of the Re phaim or giants. The story of his bedstead Mem. iii. f may be based on the huge which Plocnician imd made in immitatI0u of ia n customs. Ma ny ot he:- fables arose about I tg, of which found their way the Jewish midrashie collections. Amon, rEs.
OGAM, ((Hr. ()gain, Ir. oyhain, Gael. oidheato perhaps connected with Gk. 4:nor, °gums, row, Skt. ajman. course, from aj. Gk. dyetv, agein, Lat. agerc, to drive). The name of a script used in various ancient inscriptions in the British Isles. They are found chiefly in the southern parts of Ireland and \Vales, and the earliest of them date from the fifth century. They number nearly three hundred in all. The Language in almost every case is a primitive form of Caere, but some fourteen of them found in Scotland appear to be Pictish. The interpre tation of these last is entirely doubtful, and scholars are not even agreed as to whether the Pictish is Intro-European.
The invention of the ogams is assigned in Irish tradition to a god (one of the Tuatha the Danann), and this name corresponds Very well to Ogmios, described by Lucian as a Childish Ilerenles. But the legend looks like an ety
mological ; especially since the motive assigned to Ogma was the desire to invent a secret script which only the learned could use, whereas there appears to have been nothing cryptic about the old Ogam alphabet. There existed, to be sure, a kind of pedantic puzzle speech, also called Ogain, some examples of which have been preserved in Middle Irish manu scripts. Dot this is to be carefully distinguished from the ancient Ogam alphabet used in inscrip tions. The old alphabet was apparently known down to the Middle Irish period. and inscriptions or messages written in Ogam figure more or less in the popular sagas.
The characters have been nearly all made out by recent investigation. They are usually cut along the edge of the stone and read from the bottom upward. In the alphabet which fol lows the horizontal line represents the edge upon which the notches and lines are yarn IiII ill lily /A& -HI IN IIIi Nlfl —x— fill um r e 1 FL 1 • ,litgaigr, a,o,u, e. i, A few of the monuments are The inscriptions contain almost nothing be sides proper names, but these are of Value for the they throw upon primitive Celtic and inflection. Compare the article on Ifusit 1.ITERATCRE.
ItIfiummaPIIY. R. IL Brash, The Ogam In scribed Monuments of the Gardhil in the British Islands (London. 1879) ; John Rhys. Lectures on Welsh Philology (2d ed.. London, I879) : Sir Samuel articles in the Transactions of the Royal Irish _leadenly, vol. xxvii.. and Ogant inseriptiuns in /rebind, Wu/rx,'anl Scotland (Ed inburgh, ISST: the Ithind Leetures for