OGAMICA, SCRITTURA. — From Ogma, Ogmu, Ogmios, the Celtic god of eloquence and writing, whom Lucian (Hercules, 1; ca. 175 A.D.) describes as dressed in a lion’s skin, with a club, hence his association with Hercules, carrying men suspended by chains from his tongue, as though hanging from the spell of speech.
In the Irish mythological cycle, Ogma is a hero who fights against the Fomorians, the first obscure rulers of the island. The ogamic writing is attributed to him; the Irish Book of Ballymote (15th century), a compilation of diverse materials, contains a series of pieces of information that have facilitated the interpretation of the surviving specimens of this writing (ca. 360 inscriptions). It consists of a series of lines (grouped from 1 to 5) arranged either straight or obliquely, above, below, or in the middle of the edge-line of the stone. Shorter straight lines or dots indicate the vowels.
Most of the ogamic stones belong to the island’s pagan period and come especially from the southern counties, Kerry, Cork, and Waterford, but some are later than the apostolate of s. Patrizio. They are funerary in content and give, in the possessive genitive, the name of the deceased and the degree of kinship: son, grandfather, grandson of...; more rarely, names of clans or ranks.