My aging father comes from Irish ancestry (specifically, his family came from Galway). During his childhood, an Irish uncle would greet him and call him "Seamus aglockany". His name is James so we know where Seamus comes from. The word "aglockany" is the one we are trying to understand. The spelling may not be correct and I am not even sure if it was one or many words. This is the closest English phonetic representation I can come up with based on my father's pronunciation. According to my father, it appeared to be a term of an endearment.

I have check translation engines and even run the word past any Irish citizens I have come in contact with. None recognize it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I wonder if it could have been "a bhuachaillín" (pronounced "uh WOO-uh-kha-leen"). Along the lines of "Séamus my lad!"

Wait for more input, please.

Redwolf

It would be helpful if we knew exactly where in Co. Galway your father and uncle came from.

Ó Muirithe's A Dictionary of Anglo-Irish (2000) has:

"Gleacaí n. a smart fellow with an element of trickery' H (n. Clare). 'The word has little of a condemning sense. It is more often used in a playful way to show that one has unearthed an ingenious trick or practical joke conceived by a younger person. When the ruse is exposed one says to the trickster, "Ha, a ghleacaí!" (the initial g changes to gh in the vocative.)' An Cho (w. Mayo)"

North Clare Irish was a variant of Galway Irish; even its speakers recognised it to be Galway Irish rather than Clare Irish. (cf. Holmer, The Dialects of Co. Clare, p. 219-223).

Dinneen (p. 544) has "a buffoon" as another meaning of gleacaidhe.

Therefore aglockany seems to me to be a dialectal variant of a ghleacaí, i.e., a ghleacánaí, specifically with an added diminutive -án- - not at all unusual.

It seems to be a term of endearment from an older sibling to a younger one.

For 'sibling' in my post read 'relative'.

That is a strong possibility. I can't think of an alternative. But the English spelling has me thinking there is an "ach" sound in it.

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It is recommended that you always wait for three to agree on a translation.
I speak Connemara Irish, and my input will often reflect that.
I will do an mp3 file on request for short translations.
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That's what made me think of "buachaillín," even though the initial sound is different. That may have mutated in memory over the years.

Redwolf

Good detective work, Dublin Gaelic!
You're probably right on this one.

All - I cannot thank you enough for your wonderful responses. They mean so much to me and will mean even more to my father.

As for what part of Galway my father's family is from, we are not absolutely certain, but based on some genealogy research I've done, there are strong indications that the family is from parts of north/east Galway - probably close to the Galway/Roscommon border and the city of Roscommon. I am unsure if that helps.

I've sent a note to my father to see if I can get more context on when/how the phrase was used with him, but certainly Redwolf and Dublin Gaelic - your answers seem very plausible.

Does the Irish Language Synthesiser located at the link below provide a pretty good approximation on the pronunciation of both "a ghleacánaí" and "buachaillín". I'd like to try to provide an audio representation to my father to see if he recognizes either. Thanks again to all that have replied. Wonderful people that have made my day.
[url]http://www.abair.tcd.ie/?lang=eng&page=synthesis&synth=gd&view=listen&speed=Gnáthluas&pitch=1.0&xpos=&ypos=&colors=default[/url]

It does a reasonable job with Ulster Irish. I'm not as familiar with the Connacht interface...Bríd, have you tried it?

If you want to get an approximation of "buachaillín" as it would have been said, you need to inflect it as I did in my first post: "a bhuachaillín."

Redwolf

Buachaill seems a stretch but since all we have is Chinese Whispers it's hard to know. DI's suggestion is interesting

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