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It is probable that Ogham (Old Irish Ogam) was widely written in wood in early times. The main flowering of the use of "classical" Ogham in stone seems to be 5th-6th century. Monumental Ogham inscriptions are found in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, and the Isle of Man, mainly employed as territorial markers and memorials. The more ancient examples are standing stones, script being carved into the edge (droim or faobhar) of the stone, which forms a stemline against which individual characters are cut. Text is read beginning from the bottom left-hand side of a stone, continuing upward, across the top and down the right-hand side in the case of long inscriptions. Inscriptions written on stemlines cut into the face of the stone, instead of along its edge, are known as "scholastic", and are of a later date (post 7th century). Notes were also commonly written in Ogham in manuscripts down to the sixteenth century. Even since that time, this tradition of native writing has never really been forgotten.

The Ogham alphabet consists of twenty-five distinct characters (feda), the first twenty of which are considered to be primary, the last five (forfeda) supplementary. The four primary series are called aicmí (plural of aicme 'family'). Each aicme was named after its first character (Aicme Beithe, Aicme hÚatha, Aicme Muine, Aicme Ailme, 'the B Group', 'the H Group', 'the M Group', 'the A Group'). Some of the names and all of the values of the forfeda are open to question. A possible twenty-sixth character is omitted here, as being inconsistently rendered and as wanting attestation in use; however space has been left for an additional character should it prove to be needed. The use of arrowheads to indicate direction is a very late development accommodated in the encoding. Several of the character names have long vowels in Irish, written with the acute accent (hÚATH, nGÉTAL, ÚR, ÉBAD, ÓR); in a few instances, Damian McManus' normalized Old Irish nomenclature (1991:3) differs from the traditionally-recognized names, and the aliases BEITHE, NIN, UATH, GETAL, and IPHIN/PIN should be recognized.