Lairig Ghru - Name

Name

Watson gives the place name "Lairig Dhru", meaning pass of Dhru or Druie, with the local pronunciation "Laarig Groo". He suggests the "probable" derivation as from Drudhadh meaning oozing. Any visitor to the summit of the Lairig Ghru would accept that as a possible derivation because two watercourses, one on each side of the summit, appear to "ooze" from the valley floor.

However, Gordon is much less certain about the derivation of the name, writing:

As a place-name Lairig Ghru remains an enigma. Lairig means hill pass, and map-makers of the nineteenth century solved the problem to their own satisfaction by substituting for Ghru the word Ghruamach, for which they had apparently not the slightest authority. Ghruamach means forbidding or surly, and forbidding the Lairig often is in wild weather ... But authorities on place-names reject these suggestions, and are obliged to leave the name Ghru a mystery, although it seems to contain the same root as the Allt Dhru burn which drains it to the north. MacBain a distinguished philologist, writes that the name is “probably the Pass of Druie river, from root dru, flow, as in Gaulish Druentia” —Gordon (1948) (p308)

The weight of suggestion is - therefore - that Lairig Ghru is certainly the hill pass (of something) and that something is probably related to the water flowing from the floor of the valley close to the summit.

Many gaelic place names have lost their original spelling and meaning through translation into English. The prolific and late Dundonian mountaineer, Syd Scroggie felt that the name Lairig Ghru was such a case and suggested that the Lairig Ghru was the Lairig Ruadh (Red Pass). This fits with the original name of the mountain range, "Am Monadh Ruadh" (The Red Mountains).