RAS Macalister – OG(H)AM

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 !

Since some of the OG(H)AM team will be heading Stateside in early March to share our findings with colleagues in Boston, it seems timely to feature an Ogam of the Month with a US connection. The manuscript now known as ‘Dunnington 1’, bequeathed to the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies in 2017 by the late Professor Edgar Slotkin of the University of Cincinnati, was one of two Irish manuscripts purchased by Mr Michael Dunnington in Lexington, Kentucky during the early 1980s. At the end of the manuscript, some ogam script was written alongside several doodles. The first ten symbols should probably be transcribed as PATTMULLER. These are followed by an eleventh symbol of doubtful value, shaped a little bit like a lozenge. The significance of this little scrap of ogam script is uncertain: could it be the name of someone once associated with or in possession of the manuscript, or is it merely more doodling on the part of the scribe?