Oh Ireland: The Emerald Isle

Free week was a blast. Amy Smith and I decided that we were going to go to Ireland for our free week. It was just a gorgeous country and a real testament to God's handiwork. We flew into Dublin and stayed there most of the time. The food was great and we went to a few pubs to get a real taste for the Irish food such as Irish stew an Shepherd's pie which were my favorites. We got in from our plane really late so it was a little nerve racking to be walking around the city of Dublin at 1 in the morning trying to find our youth hostel, but we made it there safely. One of the coolest things we saw in Dublin was bog men in Ireland's history museum. They were these people who were sacrificed by the Norwegian kings to the gods and then had their bodies thrown in the nearby bogs where they were perfectly preserved. One of the bog men that we saw had his organs intact as well as a full head of curly red hair and a beard and mustache as well as fingernails. They looked like they could come to life at any moment. There is a lot of Viking history in Ireland, in fact the most well preserved Viking settlement was found in Dublin, but to my horror I found out that the government was too interested in building there city hall that they bulldozed it. Theystill have a lot of Viking artifacts that we got to see in the museum which was really interesting for me to see because often in history one does not hear to too much about the Scadinavian history beside the fact that the Vikings were feirce seamen who often pillaged the towns of Europe. While we were in Ireland, Amy and I took a day tour to Giant's Causeway, Belfast, Derry, and a fisherman rope bridge over the Irish sea. The rope bridge was the most exciting part, however it was rather narrow and was easily blown around with the strong winds. Walking across was crazy, but so worth it. Derry was a beautiful little port town, with a huge wall wrapped around it like Nurnberg. They still had the English cannons up on the walls from the revolt that occured in the town in the 1900s. We also went to Galway while in Ireland, which was another little quaint port town and apparently the home town to the cladaugh symbol. We also we to a cemetry we found while walking outside the town with graves as old as from the 1600s. Most of the graves were marked with tall celtic crosses. We also found a well that supposedly was St. Augustine's well that had cured the town people's eye and ear diseases once they prayed and drank of the water. it was really close to the shore line of the Atlantic so at high tide the well was submerged in water. We stayed in Galway one night before going back to Dublin for our flight out. All in all it was a wonderful trip with only a few bumps in the road. Amy and I were very blessed.

This is the writing I found in the Irish museum

Ogham is read bottom to top and sometimes wraps up and over the stone along the edge. The key to deciphering the Ogham writing was found in orthodox bilingual inscriptions.
As you will have noticed, there are several letters missing from the Latin alphabet shown above: F, J, K, P, V, X and Y. The same letters are missing from the newly re-arranged Ogham alphabet. This probably means that the linguist who designed the Ogham alphabet was selective in chosing only those Latin letters which made the cabalistic calculations and arrangement possible. The V had replaced the B and the F; the I replaced the J and Y; the C and Q replaced the K; the B, a labial, took the pace of P (also a labial), the character X was used for the later Ogham diphthong EA, but in the Ogham script sometimes is written as KS. It is intesting to note that Q-Celtic has no F, J or P. Neither is there a P in Arabic. Only a few words in Basque start with F, which letter may be a quite recent addition to this language; the V, C, Y and Q still do not exist in Basque, and the Basque X represents "sh".
The reason why all 15 consonants are listed first in the alphabet and the 5 vowels following, has to do with the special arrangement of the words in the monk's dictionary. The primary organization of their dictionary is according to the consonants. Half of the Basque language is made up of words starting with vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV, sometimes VCCV) and it is mainly this half of the language which the monks used in the construction of the Romance languages and English. These words were then arranged according to the first consonants in the words, each consonant was then subdivided again into 25 VCV combinations such as under D: ada, ade, adi, ado, adu; eda, ede, edi, edo, edu; ida, ide ..... etc. Under each such VCV were then listed all those words with their translations which started with these three letters. This arrangement is still the best way for us to decode Ogham writing
Ogham translation requires the following steps:
- Step 1. Transliterate the Ogham characters into our Latin letters,
- Step 2. Replace the letters c, q, v, w, y with equivalent Basque letters, c and q become k, v becomes b, the y becomes i.
- Step 3. Arrange these corrected letters into the VCVCV format, placing dots where vowels are missing,
- Step 4. Fit these letters into the VCV formula,
- Step 5. List the various meanings underneath each VCV,
- Step 6. Arrange the hidden sentence.
The best way to explain the process is with a few examples of real Ogham inscriptions, take for instance:
"Cunovato".(Macalister #11.)
Step 1. The middle part of the inscription was badly damaged, but after much study Dr. Jost Gippert at Frankfurt University decided that it should read:
"Cunavato"
Step 2. All Ogams in Ireland are based on the Basque language, however, Basque does not have a "C" or a "V", so the inscription will now read
"Kunabato"
Step 3. When fitting the letters in the VCVCVCVCV format, it appears that only one, the first vowel, is missing, which must therefore be represented by a dot. The inscription to be translated now reads:
".kunabato".
Step 4. There are four consonants so this VCVCVCVCV line is then broken up by hyphens into four three-letter VCV's in which the V's on either side of the hyphens are the same (called interlocking): VCV1-V1CV2-V2CV3-V3CV, which therefore represents four words:
.ku-una-aba-ato
Step 5. With the preliminaries out of the way, the next step in decoding an Ogham inscription is to list the possible meanings underneath each VCV. In the case of the one missing vowel, all five possibilities must be tried (aku, eku, iku, oku, uku) as follows:

(aku) una aba ato
to incite boredom priest tow
to stimulate annoyance occasion tug boat
to rent, lease cowherd slingshot to arrange
acoustics fatigue advantage to seize

(eku) dull rower embellish
equator, worried almost to solve
peace of mind shade come!

(iku) branches shirt
to touch, to visit
flag, motto, watchful

(oku)
fertile field

(uku)
stable, falsify
go bad, smelly
Step 6. To discover the hidden sentence we must match up the words which obviously belong together, starting with the complete VCV's. For instance take the pair aba and ato and immediately out pops priest and come!, "the priest says: Come!". Why would he say come!? "To stimulate" (aku) your "boredom" (una). The translation of CUNAVATO therefore is:
"The priest will stimulate your boredom; come!" The completed words are: akuilatu (to stimulate) unadora (boredom) abade (priest) ator! (Come!). That is exactly what one would expect a missionary to say, it's his job.
Occasionally more than one reasonable meaning appears in which case we have a problem. Lay this work aside and return to it later; often new insight will be obtained and the proper translation decided upon. In the following pages you will see hundreds of decodings and learn that applying the Ogham formula is not an exact science. Guessing the mood of the monk who made up the word can be fun
A second example.
Now I will decode an Ogham inscription which has two vowels missing (Macalister # 364):
Step 1. barcuni
Step 2. barkuni
Step 3. .bar.kuni
Step 4. .ba-ar.-.ku-uni
Step 5. Three VCV's have a vowel missing. Each of those represents five VCV's e.g. .ba can be aba, eba, iba, oba or uba. Go to the VCV dictionary and list the possible meanings under each of these five VCV's. Do the same with .ar and .ku The last one, uni, is complete and only has a few possible meanings.
Step 6. When assembling the sentence built into the inscription, keep in mind who the people were that carved it. The words that pop out immediately are "evangelist" and "priest" under eba, which goes together with "prayer" under are: "the evangelist's prayers" . What do they do? They give peace of mind, under eku. The sentence therefore reads: "The evangelist's prayers (give you) general peace of mind". The four words completed are then: ebanjelari (evangelist) arren (prayer) ekurutasun (peace of mind) unibertsal (general).
FORFEDA, .bo-or.-.fe-eda;
.bo ebo eboluzionatu to develop
or. ori ori that
.fe ife ifernuko infernal
eda eda edabe potion, fabrication
Develop that infernal fabrication!
Notice how the word "forfeda" breaks up into four three-letter VCV roots, ebo-ori-ife-eda, each composed of vowel-consonant-vowel (VCV), with the vowels interlocking to form a chain of interdependent roots. This interlocking is the main characteristic of Ogham writing, is basic to all Ogham inscriptions and is indispensible in deciphering. Any missing (purposely removed) vowels in the words analysed, are represented by a dot until identified. Forfeda symbols are never eliminated. The monks later embellished this word to "Foirfeadha", to make it look as if the word had originated with the "Celtic" language, which is characterized by an excess of unnecessary vowels and h's. Some remarks in the Auraicept pertain to the creation of Forfeda characters such as:
IN LEBOR OGHAIM. in.-.le-ebo-oro-oga-ahi-im.; (5465 etc)

in. ina inauguratu to innovate
.le ale alegiñez carefully
ebo ebo eboluzionatu to develop
oro oro orobateko similar
oga oga ogasun wealth
a.i ahi ahituezin timeless
im. imi imitazio character
Innovate by carefully developing a similar wealth of timeless characters.
(Note: there is no break in the interlocking vowels, even though the text is broken into three "words".)
A third example.
The decoding of the more complicated Ogham inscriptions is difficult to fit into the internet restrictions, however, the reader now has the idea how decoding is done. My third example is considerably larger and will therefore be presented in a different manner, which has the disadvantage of not being able to show how the missing vowel is recovered, but this is difficult to avoid.
Step 1.
Bladnach cogradedena
and
Bladnach cuilen
(McManus, page 132). Macalister #1086, 1949, shows the second word as Cogracetena, which is incorrect. Both inscriptions are found on a bronze hanging bowl, likely an incense burner, dug up from a swamp in County Kerry. "They are inscribed along the upper surface of the rim and on one of the escutcheons" (McManus 7.6)

Step 2. Bladnak kogradedena and Bladnak kuilen.
Step 3. .B.lad.nak. .kog.radedena and .B.lad.nak. .kuilen
Step 4. .B.-.la-ad.-.na-ak. .ko-og.-.ra-ade-ede-ena, and .B.-.la-ad.-.na-ak. .ku-ile-en.
Step 5. This time I place the given VCV's along the left border:

Bladnak:
.B. abe abe cross
.la ela ela story
ad. ade adelatu to prepare
.na ena ena that
ak. aka akabu ultimate, superior

kogradedena:
.ko ako akorduan euki to remember
og. ogi ogizatitze breaking of the bread
.ra ira iragan to suffer
ade ade adelatu to prepare
ede ede edergi to confide in
dena dena Deuna Lord
Step 6. The story of the Cross prepares us for that ultimate remembrance while preparing for the breaking of the bread (for His) suffering (while we) confide in the Lord.
kuilen:
.ku eku ekurutasun peace of mind
ile ile ilezin everlasting
en. ene eneganatu to come over me
The story of the cross prepares me for that ultimate everlasting peace of mind (which will) come over me

Rating The Consonants...
In analyzing Ogham inscriptions and names or words, especially those from which too many vowels have been removed, it may be helpful to know which consonants are easier to decode than others. I devised a rating system which I found helpful. It involves writing down all the possible VCV combinations and then counting only those which are found in Aulestia's dictionary. For instance take "F":
afa efa ifa ofa ufa
afe efe ife ofe ufe
afi efi ifi ofi ufi
afo efo ifo ofo ufo
afu efu ifu ofu ufu

Out of the 25 VCV possibilities of "F", only the six italicized VCV's are the first letters of existing Basque words: afa (pleasing, supper), ifa (north), ife (infernal, hell), ifi (from ibi, to be, to go), ofi (craftsman, official), ufa (panting, blowing, scornful). The rating of the consonant "F" is therefore 6, making it the second easiest of all letters to find meanings for. The ratings of all the consonants are as follows:
Ñ-5, F-6, J-7, NG-13, Z-17, B-18, M-18, D-20, G-20, S-21,
K-22, L-22, N-22, P-22, T-22, H-23, R+RR-46.
The use of the letter "R" in the inscriptions poses somewhat of a problem because no distinction is made between "R" and "RR", each having its own set of 23 VCV combinations. Also the large number of words associated with each combination of this letter make it sometimes difficult to select the appropriate word. The analysis of the "R" or "RR" is therefore usually kept to the last.