I allude to lies in a disused burial-place called Ballintaggart, near Dingle, in the barony of Corco Duibne or Corcaguinny, and it reads: Maqqvi Iaripi Maqqvi Moccoi Dovvinias; that is to say '(The Grave or the Stone) of Mac Erp,[1] son of Dovvina's Descendant. Mocco Dovvinias was probably the standing designation of the head of the clan to which Mac Erp belonged, and with it may be compared the fashion in use now of speaking of the O'Donoghue or the O'Conor Donn, meaning respectively the Descendant of Donchadh and of Conchobar. In any case, the pedigree implied in the inscription is made to end with the distant ancestress whose name in the genitive is given as Dovvinias. The final sibilant was very precarious even in early Irish, and no trace of it occurs in the other inscription to be mentioned. This latter occurs on a stone in the same neighbourhood, which stands on a small headland near Dunmore Head in a wild situation arguing no lack of sentiment on the part of him who chose the site: the legend is the following:—
| ᚓ | ᚏ | ᚉ | ᚋ | ᚐ | ᚊ | ᚔ | ᚋ | ᚐ | ᚊ | ᚔ | ᚓ | ᚏ | ᚉ | ᚔ | ᚐ | ᚄ | ᚋ | ᚑ | ᚇ | ᚑ | ᚃ | ᚔ | ᚅ | ᚔ | ᚐ |
| E | r | c | M | a | qv | i | M | a | qv | i | E | r | c | i | a | s | M | o | D | o | v | i | n | i | a |
- ↑ This is a guess; but Erp would be the name whose genitive occurs as (H)irp in the Bodley MS. Laud. 610; see fol. 95b2, where we read of a Cathmol mc Hirp, who was buried with Lugaid mac Con in Cuil m-Brocholl, somewhere in South Munster. The name occurs in the Welsh Triads, i. 40 = ij. 5, as that of Yrp Lluyᵭawg, who obtained a vast host from the Welsh by outwitting them in arithmetic. He was possibly a Pict; the name Erp was borne by several persons also in Norse literature: see the Corpus Poet. Bor. i. 51, 56, 58, also ij. 2, 6, where a poet Erp Ljutandi is mentioned.
