The "deaf" part of the possible Irish origin of the word is interesting: the big bass drum in samba bands is called a "sordo" which I believe means deaf in Portuguese. It is popularly supposed that this refers to the fct that you dont really hearthe big basses close to, but you feel them as the sound develops at a distance, like a big bell. I was being flippant about avery modern tourist invention of the word: what I am suggesting is a modernish(last 200 years?) borrowing from English/French tambourine, with an extremely modern gaelicisation of the spelling to "bodhran"; the same thing that seems to have happened to crack/craic.This seems more likely than itbeing an older Irish word: but this could be settled easily if an old example of the word could be found..I am just talking here of the history of the name, not the history of the instrument: any culture whose agriculture uses seeds is going to have a drum shaped like this .Has a special name for "Low D whistle" been invented yet?