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“Kalvagh” is an anglicised spelling of the Irish phrase “Coill Fea,” which means “Beech Wood.”
In this phrase, “Coill” means “wood” and “Fea” means “beech.” On its own, the word “fea” was also used in a general sense to mean a “wood,” and, also “writing.” The old Romans also used “wood” (“Sylva”) as a word depicting “writing,” i.e., in the very old days when they wrote on leaves and tablets of wood. It is likely that both “fea” (in Irish) and “sylva” (in Latin) (as well as “wood” in English) derive from a Sanskrit or Proto-Indo-European “va.” “Van” in modern Hindi also means “wood.” It is likely that the practice of referring to writing as “wood,” is more ancient that either Irish or Latin (See further note on “Writing in ancient Ierland,” below). |
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Writing in Ancient Ireland:
At school I learned that writing was brought to Ireland by the Christians, in the 4th century. The first chink in this official version of history occurred when my childhood country-friend, Johnny Searson, introduced me briefly to the history of Lusmagh.
According to local tradition, the name “Lusmagh” (clearly originating in the Irish language) was introduced by the Tuatha De Danaan (“the Princes of Dee, daughter of Dana”), whereas, according to the official history, the Irish Language was introduced, much later, by the Celts who, the history books said, arrived in Ireland around 350 BC.
Visits to the antiquity sections of the National Museum and ancient monuments around the country suggest that the Irish Language evolved from the language, a branch of Sanskrit sometimes referred to as Hiberno Indo-European, spoken by the neo-lithic settlers who arrived in Ireland around 4,000 BC. Archeologists have found no evidence to support an invasion and conquest of Ireland in the millenium before Christ. The Euro-Celtic artefacts that enriched the national heritage during that period were the result of European artisans being employed by rich land-owners, just as the great houses of 18th century Ireland were adorned with Italian craft-work, without an Italian invasion and conquest.
Ogham was a form of writing in use before the arrival of the Christians. The name Ogham derives from one of the Gods of the Dana People: “Ogma, brother to the king, that taught them writing” (Gods and Fighting Men: The story of the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland, arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory, with a preface by W. B. Yeats, Murray, London, 1904, included in Lady Gregory’s complete Irish Mythology Bounty Books, London, 2004).
I have often heard scholars pronounce “Ogam” or “Ogma,” with a hard, or sounded, “g,” (for the word appears without a “h” after the “g” in the earliest manuscripts). This is erroneous. The pronunciation is “Owam” or “Oma.”
The practice of including a dot over an aspirated consonant was a late introduction (and the replacement of the dot by the letter “h” later still). The original Latin spellings followed the Ogham tradition, which did not indicate whether a consonant was aspirated or not.
In this regard, I give you the following explanation from O’Reilly’s famous dictionary of 1821: “It is to be observed that the Irish consonants b, c, d, g, p, t, by a full-point or tittle set over any of them, do thereby lose their simple strong sound, and pronounce after the manner of the Hebrew bh, ch, dh, gh, ph, th, which are simple and genuinely aspirated; on the other hand … the now-mentioned Hebrew consonants, by fixing a Dugeach, or full-point in the middle of any of them, do thereby lose their simple aspirate sound, and pronounce strong like the Irish b, c, d, g, p, t. … It must be confessed that the using a full-point in either of the two languages is of a late invention, these consonants being naturally wrote down, and the strong or aspirate pronunciation of them being left to the judgment of the skilful readers, who, doubtless, wanted no such points to direct them; thus the modern Spaniards, who use the b and v indifferently for each other, pronounce the word biber to drink as if it were written biver, &c, as did the ancient Romans”.