CHAPTER V.
SCULPTURE.
The sculptured and inscribed stones of Christian Ireland, as
yet described, may be thus divided : 200 Ogham stones, 250
tombstones, 7 pillar stones, 4 altar stones, 1 Mass stone, 1 quern
stone, and 45 High Crosses. The fact that the sepulchral
inscriptions of Ireland are mostly in the vernacular idioms of the
country, and not, as in other countries, in the Latin languages,
gives them a peculiar interest. It may arise from the fact that
Ireland never formed part of the Roman empire, and the
ignorance of Latin which consequently prevailed; but it also
bears testimony to the dignity which the native tongue had
already attained at a very early period ; and Mr. Rhys* has
noted that the circumstance that genuine Ogham inscriptions
exist both in Ireland and Wales which present grammatical forms
agreeing with those of the Gaulish linguistic monuments, is
enough to show that some of the Celts of these islands wrote
their language before the fifth century, the time at which
Christianity is supposed to have been introduced into Ireland.
Starting srom the fifth century and passing on to the sixth and
seventh, we have a class of biliteral and bilingual inscribed stones
in Ogham characters with their equivalent in Roman letters, such
as the stone of Finten, of Juvene Druides, of Colman, and of Curoi

See “ Lecture on Welsh Philology,” p. 272, by John Rhys.