Ogma and the Ogham Alphabet (Oghma)

A champion of the Tuatha Dé credited with inventing writing in Ireland, and the alphabet still cut on standing stones.

Ogma is a warrior of the Tuatha Dé and one of its three great champions, and he is also the one credited with letters. The medieval Ogam Tract names him as the inventor of the ogham alphabet, the script of notches and strokes cut along the edge of a standing stone, and the script takes its name from him.

His epithet is Grianainech, usually translated sun-faced. What it means is not explained anywhere, which has not stopped people explaining it.

The oldest ogham inscriptions in Ireland date from roughly the fourth century, and there are several hundred of them, almost all of them names in the genitive: someone, son of someone. They are the first written Irish there is, and for a long time they were the only written Irish there was.

The Ogam Tract has a theory of why it was invented that says a great deal about who wrote it: the script was made, it says, as a speech for the learned, set apart so that the common people could not read it. Writing as a professional secret rather than a public convenience.

There is a long-running comparison with Ogmios, a Gaulish god Lucian describes as a figure of eloquence leading his followers by fine chains running from his tongue to their ears. The names look close and the association with speech looks closer. But the link is not accepted by everyone: Thurneysen and van Hamel both rejected it, and it is better treated as an open question than a fact.