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This is a draft edition! It is very incomplete! See the first part of this article. You have been warned!
As yet, no pre-1600 Scottish Gaelic examples of the name have been found written in standard Gaelic orthography.
The Book of the Dean of Lismore, a collection of Gaelic poetry collected in the early 16th century and recorded in Gaelic but using Scots language style spelling rather than standard Gaelic spelling, includes a poem that refers to a MacGregor chief as the 'son of Dear-bháil' (as a poetical description, not as a byname). Where Watson's modern Gaelic version has "mac Dear-bháil" and M'Lauchlan's modern Gaelic version has "Mac Diarbhuil", the original manuscript has "m'derwail".[Watson, p. 30; M'Lauchlan, OG pp. 108-9] In the Dean's chronicle, included in the book of poetry, this man's mother is recorded as "Darwayll Neyn Ewyn Vc Lachlyn"; she died in 1424. (Watson, p. 262)
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