The Cloonmorris Ogham Stone is an ancient monument at Saint Michael's Church, Bornacoola,

County Leitrim County Leitrim ( ; gle, Contae Liatroma) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Connacht and is part of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the village of Leitrim. Leitrim County Council is the local authority for the ...

, in

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Description

It is the only Ogham inscribed stone to be recorded in

. First examined by Mac Neill in 1909, the stone then marked the Kellagher family burial plot "opposite the middle of the eastern gable of the ruin" of Cloonmorris church. The long stone dates to , has an ecclesiastical association, and is not definitely post-

apocope In phonology, apocope () is the loss (elision) of a word-final vowel. In a broader sense, it can refer to the loss of any final sound (including consonants) from a word. Etymology ''Apocope'' comes from the Greek () from () "cutting off", from ...

. The defaced inscription makes accurate reading difficult. The inscription reads , or , expanding to ''"QENUVEN Ceanannán, Ceannán). In Wales the name ' occurs on a British-Latin inscription at Parcau near Whitland in Carmarthenshire, and is believed to identify a person of Gaelic, rather than Brythonic, origin. Scholars noted the Cloonmorris is "hardly a stone's throw from the boundary" between Longford and Leitrim, the stone standing inside the historic

Conmhaícne The Conmhaícne or Conmaicne were a people of early Ireland, perhaps related to the Laigin, who dispersed to various parts of Ireland. They settled in Connacht and Longford, giving their name to several Conmaicne territories. T. F. O'Rahilly's a ...

territory once separating the

Kingdom of Meath Meath (; Old Irish: ''Mide'' ; spelt ''Mí'' in Modern Irish) was a kingdom in Ireland from the 1st to the 12th century AD. Its name means "middle," denoting its location in the middle of the island. At its greatest extent, it included all of ...

from Connacht. the stone was moved and enclosed on a pedestal near the churchyard entrance, but in doing so was placed into an inverted (top-down) position.

Notes and references

Notes

Citations

References

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External links