> This leads me to think that the clan name may not be directly
related
> to the Gaelic.
> Rather I'm thinking it may be a Gaelicization of
> an early form more related to Giodelic, that by the course of
events
> and geography was isolated for a long period from developments in
> Ireland. If this is the case it may explain why there is a
> persistence to display and pronounce it as Kw or Qu.
I don't see why - whether the name comes from Mac Guaire or Mac
Ruidre, both are fully Gaelic. It is quite impossible that an
archaic, Proto Irish form beginning with *Qu- could have survived
into the medieval period to become a surname - otherwise we would
still see medieval surnames like Maqu-XXX instead of Mac. It can't be
Pictish (they spoke Brittonic, which had no Qu-s) and no other
language shows any evidence of having been spoken in Ireland or
Scotland in the Middle Ages, so I don't see how such an archaic form
could have survived. The Qu- in (Mac) Quarrie is pretty clearly an
Anglicization of a purely Gaelic name.
-Chris Gwinn