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Recent Posts
- Celebrating Irish Grandparents
- Lughnasa: The Irish Festival Celebrating the First Fruits of Fall
- Go West: Explore the Wild Atlantic Way
- The Gift of an Irish Name
- How to Spot an Irish Dad
- Trees Are Life: Irish Gifts with Deep Roots
- Ireland's Glorious Greens
- Ancient Irish Wedding Traditions
- Is Guinness Brewery the Heart of Dublin ?
- Our Patron Saint’s Famous Cathedral
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Ireland’s Earliest Written Words
IrishShopShare
Ogham writing is showing up on more and more Irish gifts, but what is it? The ancient slash marks carved on stone were the earliest form of writing in Celtic Ireland. This form of writing flourished in the fifth and sixth centuries AD, but is believed to be even older than that. Some experts believe that ogham was influenced by the Roman Empire, although it developed as a Gaelic writing system. Ogham inscriptions have been found in other Gaelic-speaking regions. Outside of Ireland, it has mostly been found in Wales but examples have also been found in Cornwall, the Isle of Mann and Scotland.
While scholars have room for debate about how the language developed and how much influence the Romans had on it, it is a Gaelic alphabet. Most of the letters are named for trees and shrubs, reflecting the pre-Christian Gaelic belief system. The letter C, for example, is coll, the Irish for hazel.
The ogham alphabet includes 25 different letters. It is written as a series of slash marks with a center line. When ogham was carved on standing stones, rectangular stones were used and the corner was used as the centre line. The length, direction and position of the slashes varies to represent different sounds. Ogham is read from bottom top, beginning at the lower left.