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at the present day in Kerry, where the parish of Nohoval is locally 

 called in Irish sometimes Uacobail, and sometimes an Uacobail, the 

 n being actually detached and turned into the article. (See O'Donovan's 

 letter on this parish). That the letter n may have been lost in this 

 manner, appears also to be the opinion of our Yery Eev. President 

 (Dr. Graves); for in a paper read before the Academy in December, 1852, 

 he remarks that the loss of the initial n in the words oi&ce (nox) and 

 unuip (numerus) "may perhaps be accounted for, by supposing that it 

 was confounded with the n of the article." 



As a further confirmation of this opinion regarding the loss of n in 

 Uachongbhail, I may state, that the letter I is sometimes lost in French 

 and Italian words from the very same cause; as in Er. once (Eng. 

 ounce, an animal), from Lat. lynx ; it was formerly written lonce, and 

 in the It. lonza, the I is still retained. Er. azur (Eng. azure), from 

 lazulus. So also It. uscignuolo, the nightingale, from luscinia, and It. 

 orbacca, a berry, from lauri-lacca. 



Another change that has been, perhaps, chiefly produced by the in- 

 fluence of the article, is the omission or insertion of the letter /. The 

 article causes the initial consonants of feminine nouns (and in certain 

 cases those of masculine nouns also) to be aspirated. Now aspirated / 

 is wholly silent ; and being omitted in pronunciation, it was, in the 

 same circumstances, often omitted in writing. The Irish name of the 

 Eiver Nore affords an instance of this. Keating and O'Heerin write it 

 Eeoir, which is sounded Eoir when the article is prefixed (an pheoip). 

 Accordingly, it is written without the / quite as often as with it : 

 The Eour Masters mention it three times, and each time they call it 

 Eoir. The total silence of this letter in aspiration appears to be, to 

 some extent at least, the cause of its uncertain character. In the case 

 of many words, the speakers and writers of Irish seem either to have in- 

 serted or omitted it indifferently, or to have been uncertain whether it 

 should be inserted or not ; and so we often find it omitted from words 

 where it was really radical, and prefixed to other words to whicli it 

 did not belong. The insertion of / is very common in the South of Ire- 

 land. (See O'Donovan's Grammar, p. 30.) 



The following words will exemplify these remarks : — The ash tree 

 was called both uinpeann and pumpeann. With the / inserted it has 

 given us the names of Eunchadaun, Eunchin, Eunshinagh (puinpean- 

 nac, abounding in ash trees), and Eunshoge, all townlands, chiefly in 

 the West of Ireland ; and also that of the Eiver Euncheon (the ash- 

 producing river) in Cork. Without the / we have Unshinagh (Uin- 

 peanriac, same as pumpeanac), which is the name of seventeen town- 

 lands in the Northern and Western counties. Erom aill, a hill or cliff, 

 we have a great number -of names — such as Elphin, in Eoscommon (aill- 

 pinn, the rock of the limpid spring ; Aillnaveagh, in parish of Omey, 

 Galway (dill-na-b-piac, the ravens' cliff), &c. With the / prefixed, 

 it is found in the names of about ninety townlands in different parts 

 of Ireland, in the forms of Eoil, Eoyle, Eall, and Eaul. Gill, I be- 



