Hi,

In working on some genealogy, I came across some land associated with the O'Briens on the north side of Scarriff, in County Clare, Ireland. I'm wondering if someone can help me with the translation of the gaelic place name. I've seen at least 3 different spellings of the name, two of which were in a hand written story about how the place got it's name. Due to the hand writing in the story, I'm not sure if I'm reading a portion of the spelling correctly, so I'll make a couple of guesses at that part.

The easy part is the spelling that comes up when you click on the area in google maps. That spelling is: "Tobernagat".

The second spelling, the one for which I'm sure of the spelling in the handwriting is: "Tubbernagoth".

The last spelling has the words separated, and it's only the last part I'm not sure of. It's: "Tober na ghat" or "glat" or "glst".

Based on the story, and an online translation program, I'm thinking this means "Well of" something, but I can't figure out that last word (gat/ghat/goth/glat/glst), or what it might mean. I'm hoping someone here might be able to help me with this.

You can see a scan of the hand written story, which includes two of the spellings (one at the top and one in the last line) at this link: http://tinypic.com/r/8z1m41/9 You can click the photo a couple of times to make it larger and easier to read.

The 3rd spelling can be seen by clicking near the center of this google map: https://goo.gl/maps/dhmPcQME1jm

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer. :-)

- Tim

Tobar na gCat = "well of the cats"
https://www.logainm.ie/en/7599?s=Tobernagat

Thanks! LOL, I should have noticed that in the story, but the handwriting had me all messed up. :-)

The story only talks about one cat though. How are plurals formed in gaelic?

There are different ways.

Here:
an cat = the cat
an chait = the cat's (of the cat, genitive)
na cait = the cats (plural)
na gcat = the cats' (of the cats, genitive plural)

Very interesting. Thanks very much for your help! :-)