Kilnasaggart, county Armagh

J 062 149 - Sheet 29

Nearest village: Jonesborough


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The North side of the Christianised standing-stone.
By the eighth century, Ogam had become antique.
This inscription is in the "half-uncial" (a kind of Italic) script
used in manuscripts, and it is in Irish, not Latin:

IN LOC SO TANIMN AIRNI TERNOHC MAC CERAN BIC ER CUL PETER ALPSTAL.
'Ternohc, son of little Ciaran, consecrates this place to the protection of Peter.'

Ternohc is known to have died in 715 C.E.
thus making this one of the earliest
definitively-dated monuments in Ireland.


The South side of the pillar.

click for a large photo

 

Another early, but more modest, pillar with an Irish inscription in similar lettering
stands at Templepatrick on the island of Inchagoill, Lough Corrib, Galway.

It clearly reads:
LIE LUCUAEDON MACCI MENUEH
'Stone of Luguaedon son of Menueh'.


 

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