Talk:gilla
IP comment[edit]
Page needs fixed. 'Gilla' is actually a related cognate of Gille/Cille (the servant of (in a religious sense)), which is the later inflection of earlier Cill (a church/abbey), and of the same root as Irish "Giolla". It can later be given a second connotation of "a servant in general/subject" alongside the rise of the High Medieval Age and the custom of peerage in Scotland, however it was not originally used as any servant at large. Gilla/Gille was most often seen in the medieval name of Gillebride, which is the Anglicization of Gille Bridhe/Cille Bridhe which directly means "the servant/devotee of St. Brigid" and comes from the Old Irish words for the same thing (which is Giolla Bhrighde). It also came to be the prefix of other given names following its usage of this coming out of Ireland. The Irish version would likely have also later been synonymous with Kildare Abbey in particular, as this was the abbey that St Brigid had served as a living person before becoming canonized.
By 1250 AD there were many Scots males who had the given name or surname "Gillebride", including several different historical figures of that time of Scotland. See:
a) Gillbride 1st Earl of Angus (1118 - c 1187)
b) Gillebride the father of Scots-Viking Somerled, both of whom controlled the Hebridean Isles/former Kingdom of Dal Riata in the 1000s and 1100s
c) Gillebride the father of Mac Suibhne (Mac Sween/Queen) in the turn of the 1200s.
d) Gilbride Mac Kinnon the lord of Iona island under the first MacDonald Lords of the Isles in the 1300s, who has a memorial headstone at Iona Abbey
e) Gilbryde Mac Gideride, a random person who witnesses a document transfering land from the Douglases to one 'Theobald De Fleming' dated 1147
f) the Mac Giolla Bhrighde family of Donegal and Ulster Ireland, who as their name suggests (lit: son of the servant of St Brigid) legally owned the land that abbeys devoted to her were built upon.
g) "Gille Ruadh" a Scottish lord who rose up in rebellion against King Alexander II in 1235, to enforce the late independent Lord of Galloway's only son (which was illegitimate) inheriting all of Galloway, when the King chose to have Galloway split between the husbands of the late lord's living daughters (who were all already Scots Nobles with other fiefs in Scotland). Who Gille Ruadh was, or what he was the lord of, was likely erased after he lost the rebellion against the King.
There is no way all six of these men are the same person.
Thus Gilla is likely a later Scots form of the original Irish 'Giolla' that Gille and Cille are also related to (Cille is more related to the form of Cill) .
Source: Just search Google for the meaning of Scottish/Gaelic "Gilla" and look through the different results, its that easy. — This unsigned comment was added by 204.111.79.161 (talk) at 13:30, 30 June 2023 (UTC).