Dance Seann Triubhas Willichan 5982

The Gaelic title (pronounced approximately like »shorn troos WILLI-shan«) means »William's Old Trousers«, which has a little less of a Celtic ring to it.

The spelling of Truibhas/Triubhas has been inconsistent for many years. In this database the entry is now spelled »Triubhas«, with the »Truibhas« spelling as an official alias. The reasoning for this is that the »Truibhas« version in the 1974 edition of Book 27 was apparently a typo.

Asked about the spelling in November 2011 the RSCDS (Elspeth Gray) replied:

I ran your email past the Archivist, Marilyn Healy. She has consulted various sources, and her reply is as follows:

"The correct spelling of the word is 'Triubhas' which is what can be found in any decent Gaelic-English dictionary, including those readily available on-line. It was spelled "Truibhas" in the first edition of Book 27 in 1975 but since the book was reprinted (with minor revisions) in 1984 the RSCDS has spelled it consistently - and correctly - "Triubhas". The pocket book Eric refers to was printed in 1976, although it does not have a date of print.

This has been discussed many times and I quote from a reply to a previous enquiry by Iain [sic!] Brockbank:

"I don't claim to be a Gaelic expert, but IU fits the rules I learned - the vowels on either side of a consonant cluster have to match slender (IE) or broad (AOU). Tr__bhas has an 'a' after the bh, so needs a, o or u before it, leading to triubhas. This is probably the reason for the change. When it happened, I can't say".

The Highland Dance is consistently spelled 'Truibhas' - the other way - and I can only assume that this is yet another case where the name was taken from a source before the 20th Century urge to standardise Gaelic orthography."

To this statement from Elspeth, Anselm adds: »Note, though, that Highland Dancing, the official textbook of the SOBHD, spells the highland dance ›Triubhas‹, and has done so since the first edition of 1955.«