Ogham is an early medieval alphabet used chiefly to write Primitive and Old Irish, surviving today mostly as carvings on standing stones across Ireland and western Britain. Its letters, called feda, are formed from groups of one to five strokes that cross or touch a central stem line. This free tool maps each Latin letter to its Ogham Unicode character so you can render names and phrases in this striking ancient script instantly, with no upload.
How it works
Encoding processes your text letter by letter and substitutes each one with its corresponding Ogham fid. The twenty classic letters are grouped into four families (aicme): the B group, H group, M group, and A group of vowels, plus five later additions called forfeda. Letters that never existed in Ogham — such as J, V, and W — are mapped to the closest available sound, for example V to the F fid (ᚃ) and Q to its own ceirt fid (ᚊ).
Spaces are rendered with the dedicated Ogham space mark (ᚚ), and you can optionally wrap the whole line in the feather mark (᚛) and reversed feather mark (᚜) that traditionally framed an inscription. Digits, punctuation, and any other unmapped characters pass through unchanged.
Tips and notes
Ogham was historically read from bottom to top when carved vertically on a stone edge, but in horizontal Unicode text it reads left to right. For an authentic monument look, enable the feather marks to bracket your text. The result suits tattoos, Celtic-themed design, game lore, and study of early Irish epigraphy. Everything runs locally in your browser — your text is never sent to a server.