Oghamica : in a letter to J.G.A. Prim, Esq. / by Samuel Ferguson.

  • Ferguson, Samuel, 1810-1886.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Oghamica : in a letter to J.G.A. Prim, Esq. / by Samuel Ferguson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    As regards the left side, the long hiatus after Muco has been occa- sioned by a chipping of the edge, done apparently with the object of obli- terating the characters. The arris is not chipped away continuously, as would have been done to fit the block for bedding in a course of masonry, but is broken off in separate indentations, as if with the design of striking away particular characters. Still, enough of the ordinary formula ‘ Maqo Mucoi ’ remains to assure us that the whole of it was formerly there, and that the reading, from above downward, which yields that sequence of characters is in the right direction. But you will ask, what is this com- mon formula ‘ Maqo’ or ‘ Maqi Mucoi,’ and what does it mean ? Here, I avow myself unable to do more than set before you what I know bearing, or seeming to bear, on the subject, leaving conclusions open as I find them. This formula ‘ Maqi Mucoi,’ then, is almost as ubiquitous as ‘ Maqi’ itself; and, first, in reference to ‘Maqi’ it may be observed that it occupies a place of such extraordinary prominence in these legends, is so often du- plicated, and occurs in contexts of such a nature as to make it extremely difficult to regard it as a mere predicate of a subject-name in an ordinary pedigree. I, just now, in illustration of the name Tuictheg, referred to the name Togittac in the Cahernagat inscription— Togittacc Maqi Sagarettos. If we consider this in what seems its equivalent Latin form— Togitacus Filii Sacerdos, the possible meaning of ‘ Maqi,’ in some at least of these contexts, may be better understood. ‘ Mucoi,’ however, is generally found in what seems a genitive form, so that whether it is predicated of ‘ Maqi,’ or ‘ Maqi’ of it,, cannot be determined by any test of grammar. Hitherto, it has always been received as the [object] whatever its meaning may be. At first it was thought to be a tribe-name ; but the formula was found to be too widely extended for any name of a family. Afterwards it was taken to be a designation of the status of the person named in the paronymic, as A son of the Swineherd B. But the difficulty of supposing all the persons whose callings were worth notice, to have been swineherds, and the constantly widening area over which the formula is found to extend, have led to the rejection of that construction, and the substitution for it of another, A. son of the Bich-in-swine B, which, however, seems open to the same ob- jection. A writer in the 1 Cork Examiner,’ at an early stage of the inquiry, suggested that ‘ Mucoi’ was equivalent to the Irish for ‘ holy’; which, if well grounded, would be an acceptable solution of the difficulty ; but his Irish does not meet the acceptance of Celtic scholars ; and, indeed, in one instance at the old church of Seskinan, in Waterford, the formula, whatever it may signify, appears—I speak on the authority of Mr. Brash, who has examined it attentively—in the uninflected form ‘Maqi Muc,’ which can hardly be rendered otherwise than ‘ Filii Porous,’ and cannot be reconciled with any form of the suggested Irish, which only resembles the word in its inflected aspects. Obviously, the true meaning remains to be discovered ; and, in aid of further investigation, I shall set down three matters deserving attention. First, when the boundary of the lands of Kirkness and Lochore, in Fife, was in dispute between Robert Burgoyne and the Celedei of Lochleven, one of the arbiters was Dufgal ‘ filius-