Well Alasdair, it just gets odder, according to the statistical data
from the Robert Matheson's Special Report on Surnames in Ireland
based on the births registered in Ireland during the year 1890, Walsh
(or Walshe) shows strongly in Munster, followed by Connaught and
Leinster and the least in Ulster, which pretty much mimics the
pattern of Norman settlement.

On the other hand Bretnach in any of its spelling forms does not show
up at all. Admittedly Matheson's survey ignores names which had less
than five occurences and there are more possible permutations of the
spelling of Bretnach than there are for Walsh but even allowing for
that it suggests that Bretnach was very much in a minority or that
the two names had emmigrated in a disproportionate ratio.

However we are moving away from the subject of harps.

Best wishes

Keith


--- In clairseach@..., "Alasdair Codona"
<calumcille@...> wrote:
>
> Keith, a charaid,
>
> Longes mac nUsnig is from the book of Leinster so this written form
> of the quotation might be datable to around 1160, which is
relatively
> early.
>
> Here's something I find curious: the three Gaelic words which first
> spring to mind as referring to the Celtic-speaking people of
Britain
> around this time are Bretnach, Cruithnech and Albanach,
corresponding
> to the Latin words Bretanus, Pretanus (ie Pictus) and Scottus.
> Gaelic, being a Q-Celtic tongue, originally had no P.
>
> There are actually more entries in the DIL under 'Bretnach' than
> there are under 'Combrec'. What's more, it is 'Combrec',
> not 'Bretnach' which is given as the loanword in the DIL; 'cuimrec'
> is a verbal noun meaning 'binding, imprisoning', and that's another
> discussion.
>
> The Gaelic word 'Brethnach' could refer to any P-Celtic speaker
from
> the west or north of Britain or from Brittany; thus we have the
> Dumbarton (the fort of the Britons) in the north of Britain.
Working
> on the hypothesis that people called Walsh arrive in Ireland
already
> called so in English, it is noteable that the Walsh name derives
not
> just from families in Wales but also from Cornwall, the West
Country
> and areas of England adjoining to Wales, therefore it is
> understandable that 'bretnac', being a more general word referring
to
> much more than a person from Wales, was adopted as the Gaelic
> equivalent of Walsh rather than 'Combrec'.
>
> Working on the hypothesis that people from the west of Britain were
> called Breathnach by Irish-speakers because that was easier than
> using another more original appellation, Walsh would probably
follow
> as the best English language equivalent because the English
> surname 'Britton' referred to someone from Brittany and,
> unlike 'Walsh', is said to date only after the Norman conquest of
> England.
>
> I'm hoping to post my transcriptions of ap Huw into staff fairly
soon
> on my website. I did them mainly to facilitate harmonic analysis
as
> I find the strong hexatonic influence on the music very interesting
> in relation to Gaelic scales. I'll let the group know once I
> commence putting the transcriptions up on the site. Hopefully
> they'll be useful to others in conjunction with the original.
>
> Beannachdan,
>
>
> Alasdair
>
>
> --- In clairseach@..., "sanger_keith"
> <sanger_keith@> wrote:
> >
> > An interesting discourse Alasdair, what was the earliest date of
> the
> > manuscript of the text? Toirm is also sometimes used in later
verse
> > in relation to the bagpipes but it would seem to be applied to
the
> > drones.
> >
> > Your mention of the survival of the word 'blaodhach' in Welsh and
> > Scots Gaelic is very topical given the current Welsh season on
> > Simon's site and the interest in the horsehair strung harp.
Whether
> > correct or not, a recent new look at the period from 789 to 1070
> > published last year, (From Pictland to Alba, 789-1070, by Alex
> > Woolf), has a refreshing take on the whole question of the
> > relationship of Irish and Scots Gaelic and modern Welsh. Boiled
> down
> > to its essentials, he advances the case that when early Welsh and
> > Gaelic split from their common route, the version spoken in what
is
> > now Wales underwent faster and wider changes due to its proximity
> to
> > Roman Latin.
> >
> > The impact of Larin on the Welsh language is apparently generally
> > accepted. But Mr Woolf advances the intriguing suggestion that
> other
> > early Welsh speaking areas like for example the 'Picts' continued
> > with a form that was far closer to the common root with Gaelic
and
> > that made for an easier assimilation of the languages spoken by
the
> > Scottish Gaels and the Picts. Staying in context of your
> observation
> > and the harp it is of course intersting to note how the
> word 'Ceard',
> > ( in all its linguistic forms), specifically came to be used of a
> > harper in Wales while it retained it's older form of just an
expert
> > craftsman in Gaelic, before settling down into its modern meaning
> of
> > a 'fine' or precious metal smith and eventually a tinsmith or
> tinker.
> >
> > Staying with a sort of Welsh theme and the possible impact of
cross
> > fertilisation of harp music between Ireland and Wales, I was
> thinking
> > about a comment I made at the Irish Harp School at Kilkenny this
> > year. It concerned the fact that the name 'Walsh' is currently
> about
> > the fourth most common name in Ireland today. Sitting dreaming on
a
> > train, (and I have no end of praise for the trains between
Kilkenny
> > and Dublin, a very civilised experience), it suddenly occurred to
> me
> > that no Gaelic speaking inhabitant of Ireland or Scotland would
> have
> > referred to someone from Wales as 'Walsh'. They would have used
the
> > Gaelic 'Cuimridh' with the 'nach' end form, or
> > alternatively 'Breathnach' or Briton.
> >
> > So how and where did all those Walsh's come from? Well there does
> > seem to be a simple explanation which certainly opens a new
avenue
> on
> > the harping links between the two countries. Firstly, the name
> Walsh
> > or its modern form Welsh is derived of course from Wales, but
that
> > was in fact an Anglo Saxon term based on the Germanic word 'Wal'
> > meaning 'Foreign' and was used by the incoming Anglo Saxons to
> > describe the indigenous inhabitants of Briton. It is the same
> element
> > that can be seen in the name of the Walnut, (or foreign nut), and
> the
> > Scottish surname Wallace, presumably given to the native
> inhabitants
> > of that part of southern Scotland by the Northumbrians as they
> > pressed northwards.
> >
> > Following the Norman conquest of most of England it would seem a
> > reasonable speculation that the Normans adopted the Anglo Saxon
> name
> > for the inhabitants of 'Wales' and that when the by then Norman
> Welsh
> > lords who had established themselves in Wales, in turn became
part
> of
> > the early Norman incursion into Ireland, it was the indigenous
> > followers from their Welsh estates who escribed by their Norman
> lords
> > as 'Walsh' became the ancestors of their modern Irish namesakes.
> >
> > I suppose it would be theoretically possible to compute the
> relative
> > proportions of people named Walsh against the proportion of the
> total
> > Irish population bearing the names of the original Norman Welsh
> lords
> > and estimate the relative numbers of the native Welsh followers
> > brought with them to Ireland by the Normans, anybody got the time
> or
> > inclination?
> >
> > Best wishes
> >
> > Keith
> >
>