Lughaidh wrote:
Quote:
but the last a in Madara is often elided
as are all final -a and -e when followed by a word that starts with a vowel... so we can write "madara uisce" just as we write duine uasal and not duin uasal etc

Lúghaidh, the question for me is the plural.
I have seen this word written madaruisce (one word). I've found it another source as madra-uisge, with a hyphen.
So what is the plural? I don't have attestation of that - would it be as if two words? Madraí uisce? Or would it be as one word? Madaruiscí? Madra-uiscí? Madaruisceacha?
I'm thinking of machtíre for "wolf" (not mac tíre, by the way) - where the plural is machtírí (not *mic tíre).
Clearly the question of what the plural is could only be solved by attestation of the form.