[ Irish KC ]
Kansas City Irish Festivals, Music, Pubs, & Events by an Artist in Ireland

Speaking of Colorado, the 12th Annual Colorado Irish Festival is on next weekend, July 7, 8, and 9, 2006. And it has me thinking of bad names for Irish and Celtic music bands.

Enter The Haggis are performing, and I find it difficult to not warm to their ridiculous name following Craig’s explanation of its origin - and because there are two other Haggis names also performing in Colorado, and they’re really bad. Canned Haggis, and Hunting for Haggis. Hmm.

Ó in the Irish language means grandson or descendant. In Irish names that have been anglicized it has morphed into O’, just as Mac - which means son - is rendered in anglicized names as Mc sometimes. Note that the notion of Mc being Irish and Mac being Scottish, or vice versa is a myth because the word for son in both the Scottish and Irish languages, is mac, and Mc is an abbreviated anglicization of mac in both countries.

With the anglicized O’ and Mc/Mac, the English language versions of Irish names are the same regardless of gender. Therefore you have Grace O’Malley and Mary McAleese even though Grace was not a grandson, and Mary is not a son.

In the Irish language however Ó still means grandson and Mac still means son, so you have different versions of names depending on gender. A daughter’s surname uses Ní instead of Ó, and Nic instead of Mac - which then require the following surname to undergo lenition (think of the letter ‘h’ after the first letter). For example you would have Sinéad Ní Mhurchú and Máire Nic Ghearailt, but their brothers would be Proinsias Ó Murchú and Caoimhín Mac Gearailt

Nic and Ní are formed from a contraction of Iníon (daughter) and Uí or Mac, literally to mean ‘daughter of grandson of’, or ‘daughter of son of’. And for good measure the names change again for married women who choose to take their husband’s name - but I’m getting carried away as I really only wanted to talk about bad names for Irish bands.

In short, if you’re using the Gaelic version of your Irish surname, it takes different forms depending on whether you’re male or female - even if you’re using an English first name.

Anyway, because Ó means grandson, the constant use of O’ in phrases directed at Irish America, in an attempt to convey a degree of Irishness, fails. O’ in Irish names does not mean ‘of’ with the apostrophe replacing the ‘f’. It comes from ‘grandson of’ and was written as O’ by English people who didn’t know what to do with the Gaelic Ó, but at least they didn’t perpetuate daft phrases with O’ in them.

So what? Well, Gobs O’ Phun wins my award for worst name at the Colorado Irish Festival. Obviously I’m a fan of puns myself, but O’ being used as ‘of’ while supposedly simulating an Irish name, is meaningless gibberish.

Ironically in its female Gaelic form, Gobs Ní Phun would suggest a girl named Gobs (who already sounds attractive) is a daughter of a grandson of somebody named Pun.

Along with Gobs O’Phun, and Enter The Haggis, Kansas City’s The Elders, and The Bridies, Cowboy Celtic, Beth Patterson, David Coe, and Paisley Close are among the performers at this year’s Colorado Irish Festival at Clement Park in Littleton on:

July 7th, 8th and 9th, 2006
Friday: 6pm - 9pm
Saturday: 10am - 10pm
Sunday: 10am - 10pm

Related, kind of:
   • Irish Place Names and Illegals
   • Black Shamrock and W
   • CeltFest moves Islands

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 2nd, 2006 at 2:18 pm and is filed under Elders, Enter The Haggis, Festivals. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.