The Dear Green Place ...

Been mooching around this, and the best I can get is:

"
glas

grey, Irish glas, green, pale, Early Irish glass, Welsh, Old Welsh, Breton glas, green: *glasto-, green; German glast, sheen (Bez.), root glas, to which German glass, English glass, are probably
"

... so the Gaelic has as the first element Gaelic "green".

(Where the fuck "dear" comes frae, god only knows.)

As for "cu" -- someone else wi better Gaelic than me can chase this. I'm totally bamjacked on it.

So the friggin "Dear [sic] Green Place" seems tae be a late nineteenth-century coignage.

Anyboy got a better call on this ... ?

:-(

Robin