The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #9466 Message #62471
Posted By: Jerry again
11-Mar-99 - 04:11 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Is Green Sleeves really Irish?
Subject: RE: Is Green Sleeves really Irish?
And Philippa, I didn't see anything in the IRTRAD-L archives that suggested the two words were independent. As "an observer" said, "union" seems to be recorded earlier, so there's a good chance that "uillean" derived from it with the help of folk etymology (just to bring this back on topic), but you can't be sure, and anyway people will call this instrument what they want.