My surname is Purcell, and when I was in school I was taught that Puirséil is the Irish version. The pronunciation I was given was “Pursale” (English r, broad s, broad l). I figured out years ago that that was wrong, so I started pronouncing it with slender consonants.

Now I'm looking at the Cork Irish dictionary and I see Purséil (priʃial). Is that just a Cork version, is it a mistake, or is that the usual way to spell and pronounce it?

My father and sister both have “Pursale” from their school days. The youngest two have “Purshale.”

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

Purcell is quite a common name in Waterford!

Puirséil

I would pronounce it Puir-siail- s as shh in English.

Sometimes the "é" becomes like a very very short "ee" sound it rolls into the next vowel very quickly- sometimes "Béarla" is pronounced BeeUR-la

With a very deep almost guttural U and R.

So that's why the "séil" ending might come across as "ial" but I think the final "L" should be palatalised also!

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

I have a Purcell great-grandmother, Mick, and if you're interested in the family's genealogy, Part V, Chapter V of Hart's Pedigrees of Ireland traces it all the way back to the Norman knight who came over with William the Conqueror. You can often find the full set of the multi-volume Pedigrees in University libraries.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

Thanks Cionnfhaolach, that helps a lot. Not that I use the Irish name, but it's nice to at least know what it is.

Caomhín, we could be related. Did you buy me anything for Christmas, cuz?

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

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Gee, it must have gotten lost in the mail.

What you said about being related is probably true (however distantly).
I also have a Dillon great-great-grandmother, and it turns out the Dillon and Purcell families have been intermarrying for many centuries in Ireland, so if you have any Dillon relatives, that might be a clincher.

Maybe they were trying to keep their Norman-ness pure?

Well, it failed in my case, with all my Mayo and Cork grandparents and great-grandparents. Come to think of it, though, that intermarrying may explain some of the, um, "oddness" in my family.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

, , I think your uncle has some explaining to do!

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Please wait for corrections/ more input from other forum members before acting on advice

To be honest, I couldn't trace the Purcell family history back any further than my grandfather.


A lot of people emigrated to America during "The Great Hunger" of 1980, so anything's possible.

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Táim ag foghlaim fós. Fáilte roimh gach aon cheartúchán.

Just a note on this:

As an Cionnfhaolach has mentioned the é in -séil can be very tight and sound very much like -siail.

The swapping of letters within a word is also very common in languages (ask vs aks, etc.), so Puirs- => Pris- is not that strange a development.

As another example of such swapping, Conchúr is pronounced as Crochúr (Cnochúr) in some parts of Ireland.

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Múinteoir Gaeilge - Irish Teacher
My "specialty" is Connemara Irish, particularly Cois Fhairrge dialect, but I can also speak Ulster and Munster Irish with native-level pronunciation.
Is fearr Gaeilge ḃriste ná Béarla cliste, cinnte, aċ i ḃfad níos fearr aríst í Gaeilge ḃinn ḃeo na nGaeltaċtaí.
Gaeilge Chonnacht (GC), go háraid Gaeilge Chois Fhairrge (GCF), Gaeilic Uladh (GU), Gaelainn na Mumhan (GM), agus Gaeilge an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil (CO).