Greenhill Ogham Stones

Discovered in 1906 when landowner 'was lowering a headland' (Buckley 1907,116), c. 40m N of, and in next field to, existing ogham stone (CO042-049002-). Macalister (1945, 62, no. 58) gave inscription as CATTUBUTTAS MAQ[...; the scores of the second word terminate at a broken end (see drawing Macalister, ibid.). According to White (1905-18, vol. 1, 327), in same field 'about 200 yards to the south, in a gap, is a quantity of broken stones, some of which have some traces of Ogham marks', which now appear to have disappeared; White (ibid.) also noted that 'according to local belief, Ogham stones are buried in the vicinity of Greenhill'. The stone (1.54m 0.46m 0.36m, measurements taken from 3d data) lies against field fence, protected by semicircular cattle grid; when this was laid down in 1985, short excavation by OPW revealed a recent shallow trench cut into much larger ditch possibly belonging to an ancient enclosure (pers. comm. C. Manning); marked curve in field fence here might respect line of ancient enclosure of which there is no other visible surface trace. Burnfort ogham stone (CO042-052003-) found c. 900m to SE. (Power et al. 1997, no. 7964)

This stone has been studied as part of the ‘Ogham in 3D’ project undertaken by the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. To access details go to the following website: http://ogham.celt.dias.ie/search.php?ciic=58