§ 343. Medially and finally ç represents O.Ir. ch when originally followed by e, i, e.g. brαiç, ‘malt’, Di. braich < O.Ir. mraich; d′eç, ‘ten’, O.Ir. deich; d′içəL, ‘one’s best’, Di. dícheall; fαiç, ‘green’, M.Ir. faithche, faidche; fαiçiL′, ‘care’, Di. faithchill; ĩ:çə, ‘night’, O.Ir. aidche; kliçə (kləiçə), ‘game’, M.Ir. cluche; ə χy:çə, ‘ever’, M.Ir. caidche; ʃeiçə, ‘hide’, M.Ir. seche. Frequently in the inflected forms of words ending in χ, as blα:içə, gen. sing. of blα:χ, ‘buttermilk’, k′i:çə, gen. sing. of k′iəχ, ‘breast’. thgh gives ç in αiçərə, ‘short cut’, Di. aithghearra; du:çə, ‘landed property’, cp. O.Ir. duthoig. dɔ(:)içə, ‘likely, probable’, = dóiche Craig Iasg., is a new formation from O.Ir. dochu compar. of dóig, dóich after the model of the majority of comparatives with palatalisation.
§ 344. ç tends to become h in some words for which see § 179. Finally it disappears after a long vowel or diphthong except αi`, e.g. k′αrk ri:, ‘moor-hen’, = cearc fhraoich; ꬶα: χrui, ‘two stacks’; b′αlαχ f′əi, ‘Ballybofey’, = Bealach Feich. Similarly in ĩ:çə when the final vowel is elided, e.g. ĩ: əgəs Lα:, ‘night and day’; ĩ: hα̃uwnə, ‘Halloween’. Medially also in kï̃viαχ, ‘strange, foreign’, M.Ir. comaithchech.
§ 345. By far the most frequent source of ç is th after a palatal vowel particularly at the end of monosyllables with short root-vowel. In such cases ç is often very faint which may be denoted by writing a small ç over the line. Examples: er′ b′iç, ‘at all’, ar bith; kα̃iç, imper. ‘throw, spend, smoke’; k′r′iç, ‘trembling’, M.Ir. crith; ər L′eç, ‘apart’; mαiç, ‘good’, O.Ir. maith; skαiç, ‘the best of anything’, from the oblique cases of M.Ir. scoth, ‘flower’ (the old meaning is preserved in f′ïNskαiç, ‘cornflower’); ʃk′eç, ‘vomit’, M.Ir. sceith; wα(:)iç, pret. of bα:huw, ‘to drown’. Note further ə sαu(w)ruw ʃɔiçαrt, ‘this last summer’, = an samhradh seo thart. This ç commonly disappears before another word beginning with a consonant in the same stress-group, e.g. d′ɛ mαh, ‘ten cows’, cp. the spelling deth in Molloy’s 33rd dialect-list; χα m′ə, ‘I spent’, χæ ʃə, ‘he spent’; d′i m′ə, ‘I ate’, imper. iç.
əmwiç, ‘outside’, and əstiç (əsti:ç), ‘inside’, are peculiar, as in M.Ir. we have immaig, istaig. True we also find ĩ:wαiç, ‘image’, Wi. imaig, and triç, ‘foot’, O.Ir. traig. But the latter has been influenced by the plural M.Ir. traigthe and dissyllables in ‑áigh usually have ‑αi` which is equivalent to ‑αiç (§ 141). əstiç is all the more surprising as the dative form ti: < M.Ir. taig is
