Just taking a little side diversion from Riobard's excellent coverage of the Harrington family branch names here... Riobard O'Dwyer <beararesearchodwyer@eircom.net> writes: > GOW is a smith; So it is. In the Manx gaelic (my father's side) it became Gaw -> Gawn -> Gawne. My understanding is that all the Manx families with this name trace back to Maelbridge Mac an Ghabbain (aka Maelbridge the son of the Smith) who was the armorer for the Kennedy family of Ormond back during the 12th century. I mention this here in the Beara list because my grandmother who grew up in Beara knew of some Manx people who'd come over to work in the mines. So the tidbit of information might be of some use to somebody else here. -- Bill