Our Approach
What is Ogham?
Ogham is an ancient alphabet that appeared in Ireland at least 1,600 years ago. It was used to inscribe Primitive Irish onto stone monuments, the oldest known form of the Gaelic languages.
The word ogham refers only to the form of the letters, while the letters themselves are known collectively as the Beith-luis-nin, these are the first three names of the letters in the ogham alphabet, in the same manner as the word alphabet derives from the first two names of the letters alpha and beta.
The vast majority of the inscriptions consist of personal names.
The etymology of the word ogam or ogham remains unclear. One possible origin is from the Irish og-úaim 'point-seam', referring to the seam made by the point of a sharp weapon.
According to the High Medieval Bríatharogam, names of various trees can be ascribed to individual letters.
The ogham alphabet originally consisted of twenty distinct characters called feda “trees”, and arranged into four groups called aicme“families”. The different groups correlate the direction of the strokes.