Researchers to investigate ancient Ogham script

Major three-year study will create a comprehensive digital online database of all 640 pre-1850 examples of Ogham script.

Academics from Scotland and Ireland are harnessing cutting-edge digital and 3D technologies to protect the inscriptions and transform our understanding of the ancient Celtic Ogham writing system.

Ogham was invented over 1500 years ago and is found in the Republic of Ireland and across the four nations of Britain, and the Isle of Man. The alphabet appears on monumental inscriptions and occasionally portable objects dating from the 4th century AD onwards, and in a handful of manuscripts dating from the 9th century onwards.

The majority of these are from Ireland, but nearly a third are found across England, Wales, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. These inscriptions are the oldest written records in the language ancestral to Modern Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx.

Only 16% of surviving Ogham-carved stone pillar are housed in national museums, with the vast majority remaining locally in churches, heritage centres or remote rural locations exposed to the elements.

Now a major three-year interdisciplinary project, led by academics from the University of Glasgow and Maynooth University, will create a comprehensive digital online database of all 640 pre-1850 examples of Ogham script which will be easily accessible to scholars and the public alike.

This extreme dispersal of inscriptions and the logistical challenges of visiting them, means few researchers have seen more than a small subset in person.