Dear Alisdair

Yes, I would agree with your views on the title,if we do assume that
it was not his own instrument the 'tone' of the title does however
fit with his other 'Scots English' material, almost a distant not
really involved attitude, but although he was clearly an accomplished
writer in that tongue I get the immpression that he was much happier
working in his native Gaelic, especially as he was equally at home
with both writing Gaelic in 18th century long hand and the older
Gaelic script.

I like the suggestion of Gille Chomhgain for the
documents 'Gillquan'. Its certainly a possibility, I had been playing
around with the 'qu' giving a Scots sound of 'wh' as in 'quen'
for 'when' and the only possibility I had come up with was
perhaps 'gille eoghan' or closer in its more usual Scotticised form
of 'Gille ewan'. I may however have slightly missled you, or at least
not gone into sufficient detail when I mentioned the cultural cross
currents in 18th century Kintyre. When MacMurchy signed one of his
poems it was as 'Finnid William Mac Mhurachaidh', given his
antiquarian Gaelic background and leanings I would have thought that
he would have used a completely Gaelic form of his name, which is why
I wonder if the William does in fact reflect a lowland Scots mothers
family.

Kintyre names are certainly interesting, it is still unclear why
towards the end of the 18th century there was a tendency for many of
them to change to 'Irish or Scots forms' that did not really have any
connection with the Kintyre Gaelic versions, for example, the
descendents of the former harpers became Shannon or MacShannon, the
MacMurchy's became MacMurphy or just Murphy on an interchangable
basis, the same individual cropping up under several different
versions of his name. In connection with this last variant of Murphy
for Murchy, I have often wondered if there was any Kintyre connection
with the William Murphy who crops up as a harper in Ulster in the
1800's.

Best wishes

Keith