Re: Golden in Galick
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In reply to:
Re: Golden in Galick
Sandy Dyson 9/09/00
Golden in Irish is spelt O'Goilin (with a fada over the second i). The reason for the different spellings was that most people were not literate up to c.1890 and were not aware of their spelling. All the old names in Irish were translated into English for offical records and these civil servants wrote the name as the nearest phonetic equivalent in English. This caused the same name to be spelt differently because of the accent in different parts of the country and as civil servants were changed, there was no certainty that the new holder of the post would even agree to nearest phonetic equivalent in English.