By David Stifter, OG(H)AM’s Irish Principal Investigator In my blog in December 2021, I talked about the different ways of spelling and pronouncing the word Ogam or ogham. In this blog entry, I will resume this discussion of the word itself and I will look into what the word may originally have referred to, before… Continue reading What does the word ogam mean and where does the name come from?
Category: Blog
‘Byrhtferth’s Ogam Signature’ and Oxford, St John’s College MS 17
By Deborah Hayden, OG(H)AM’s Co-Investigator As we move into a new year, it seems fitting that this January’s OG(H)AM project blog should be devoted to a manuscript source concerned with calendrical matters. The image below is of a page in Oxford, St John’s College MS 17, an early-twelfth-century collection of texts, tables, maps and diagrams… Continue reading ‘Byrhtferth’s Ogam Signature’ and Oxford, St John’s College MS 17
Ogam and Trees
By Deborah Hayden and David Stifter There is a popular belief that the names of the ogam letters derive from words for trees: indeed, a quick Google search will typically unearth numerous links to websites where the script system is referred to as the ‘Irish Tree Alphabet’, the ‘Celtic Tree Alphabet’ or similar. This association… Continue reading Ogam and Trees
In Search of Lost Ogham Biographies
By Dr Nora White, OG(H)AM’s Irish Postdoctoral Researcher Following the first recording of an ogham stone (at Emlagh East, Co. Kerry) by Edward Lhuyd in the early 1700s, the vast majority of Irish ogham stones were recognised and recorded in the 19th and 20th centuries, although an occasional new find does still occur. In many… Continue reading In Search of Lost Ogham Biographies
‘Selective Authenticity’: Ogham in Video Games and Tabletop RPGs
By Dr Megan Kasten, OG(H)AM’s UK Postdoctoral Researcher In our April blog, Clara Scholz introduced us to the use of ogham in gaming through an examination of the script’s appearance in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Although AC:V is probably the most popular game to include ogham in its worldbuilding, it is not the first to do… Continue reading ‘Selective Authenticity’: Ogham in Video Games and Tabletop RPGs
Happy Birthday, R. A. S. Macalister !
By Katherine Forsyth, OG(H)AM’s Scottish Principal Investigator Inspired by our runological cousins, who celebrate International Day of Runology on 14 December each year, we have decided to declare a global day of celebration for our own dear script. Following some discussion as to which would make the most suitable day, we have settled upon the… Continue reading Happy Birthday, R. A. S. Macalister !
In Lebor Ogaim, ‘The Book of Ogam’
By Deborah Hayden, OG(H)AM’s Co-Investigator In my last blog post on this site I discussed some of the earliest attestations of manuscript ogam, as well as the relationship between this script and ideas about alphabets that are expressed in the earliest grammar of the Irish language, Auraicept na nÉces (‘The Scholars’ Primer’). This post picks up… Continue reading In Lebor Ogaim, ‘The Book of Ogam’
Digital Ogam: Implementation and Implications; Guest blog by Adrian Doyle
We are grateful to Adrian Doyle for contributing a guest blog this month. He is the creator of the Würzburg Irish Glosses website (wurzburg.ie) and is currently completing a PhD researching Natural Language Processing techniques for Old Irish in NUIG. Adrian writes: The ogam script has existed for over one and a half thousand years.… Continue reading Digital Ogam: Implementation and Implications; Guest blog by Adrian Doyle
The use of Ogham in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla: Guest Blog by Clara Scholz
We are grateful to our Erasmus+ student intern Clara Scholz for providing this month’s blog. Clara writes: Ogham inscriptions have slowly but surely made their way into several pieces of popular media. One of the most recent and widely recognized pieces the script appears in is the newest addition to the videogame universe of Assassin’s… Continue reading The use of Ogham in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla: Guest Blog by Clara Scholz
Three Approaches to Digital Imaging
By Dr Megan Kasten, OG(H)AM’s UK Postdoctoral Researcher Last month, the OG(H)AM project digitally recorded two of the ogham stones and seven ogham-inscribed portable objects in the National Museum of Ireland’s collections with the help of Irish project partners, the Discovery Programme. The team included OG(H)AM Postdoc Researchers, Megan Kasten and Nora White, OG(H)AM intern… Continue reading Three Approaches to Digital Imaging