Birlinn Ghoraidh Chrobhain

[Mairead]

Halò, a h-uile duine! I'm writing up a museum pamphlet about songs, some of which are in Gaelic. I've been tr*nsl*t*ng the Gaelic titles myself but this one was so strange I wanted a second opinion. The song is called Birlinn Ghoraidh Chrobhain, which I'm currently tr*nsl*t*ng as “The galley of Cloven Godfrey”. Does that make sense? Is "cloven" this guy's byname? Or have I mistranslated the last word? Your help is much appreciated!

[faoileag]

Not sure where you got 'cloven' from. In AFB cloven is 'crodhan'. Very different pronunciation.

Any translations of the song title tend to keep an Anglicised version of 'Chrobhain', such as Gorrie Gròvan.

e.g.
http://www.ambaile.org.uk/detail/en/427 ... oraidh.htm

http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/54472/6

http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=31829

The nearest to 'cròbhan' that I found is
'crobh /kro
fir. gin. -a, iol. -an
1 paw 2 hoof 3 claw

OR

guth cròbhaidh
deep voice

cròbhaidh /krɔːvɪ/
bua. coi. -e
deep (of tone)

[Mairead]

When I copy and pasted the word into AFB, they just gave me the crodhan entry. *shrugs* Thanks for your input!

[GunChleoc]

drodhan can also mean "clumsy hand", and then I found entries like crobh-dearg = bloody cranesbill (geranium sanguineum). So, unless we actually know what the name means, better leave it alone and follow faoileag's suggestion.

[akerbeltz]

Yes, sorry, the entry for crodhan/crobhan in the dictionary was a little older and had not been re-visited. So the dictionary correctly redirected you from the inflected chrobhain to the root but because you entered an inflected form, the right (Dwelly) side did not show crobhan (the clever redirects only work in the new (left) dictionary column.
I've now amended the entry. It's basically a diminutive of crobh paw/claw/hoof/clumsy hand as the others suggests.
Thanks for posting, it's hard to keep track of entries which need a second look and people mentioning this helps

[Mairead]

Ah thanks for the explanation! This discussion has been very helpful. We were feeling a bit cheeky so we went with "Clumsy Godfrey" in the end. And glad that I was of help for you, too!