_Apropos_ of the Irish liking for swine's flesh, Stanihurst tells a good story: "'No meat,' says he, 'they fansie so much as porke, and the fatter the better. One of John O'Nel's [Shane O'Neill's] household demanded of his fellow whether beefe were better than porke. 'That,' quoth the other, 'is as intricate a question as to ask whether thou art better than O'Nell.'" CHAPTER XI EARLY USE OF LETTERS, OGAM AND ROMAN We now come to the question, When and where did the Irish get their alphabet, and at what time did they begin to practise the art of writing? The present alphabet of the Irish, which they have used in all their books from the seventh century down, and probably for three hundred years before that, is only a modification--and a peculiarly beautiful one--of the Roman letters. This alphabet they no doubt borrowed from their neighbours, the Romanised Britons, within whose territory they had established themselves, and with whom--now in peace, now in war--they carried on a vigorous and constant intercourse.[1] The _general_ use of letters in Ireland is, however, to be attributed to the early Christian missionaries. But there is no reason to believe that it was St. Patrick, or indeed any missionary, who first introduced them. There probably were in Ireland many persons in the fourth century, or perhaps even earlier, who were acquainted with the art of writing. Already, at the beginning of the third century at least, says Zimmer in his "Keltische Studien," British missionaries were at work in the south of Ireland. Bede, in his history, says distinctly that Palladius was sent from Rome in the year 431 to the Irish "who believed in Christ"--"ad Scottos in Christum credentes." Already, at the close of the third century, there was an organised British episcopate, and three British bishops attended the Council of Arles held in 314. It is quite impossible that the numerous Irish colonies settled in the south of England and in Wales could have failed to come into contact with this organised Church, and even to have been influenced by it. The account in the Acta Sanctorum, of Declan, Bishop of Waterford, said to have been born in 347, and of Ailbe, another southern bishop, who met St. Patrick, may be looked upon as perfectly true in so far as it relates to the actual existence of these pre-Patrician bishops. St. Chrysostom, writing in the year 387, mentions that already churches and altars had been erected in the British Isles. Pelagius, the subtle and persuasive heresiarch who taught with such success at Rome about the year 400, and acquired great influence there, was of Irish descent--"habet progeniem Scotticæ gentis de Brittanorum vicinia," said St. Jerome. As St. Augustine and Prosper of Aquitaine call him "Briton" and "British scribe," he probably belonged to one of the Irish colonies settled in Wales or the South-west of England. His success at Rome is a proof that some Irish