‘Dear Green Place’ is often taken to be the literal translation of Glasgow. But when Laura Williams started delving into the etymology of Glaschu, she found it to not be so clear cut.

By Laura Williams

Earlier this year, as conversations about Glasgow hosting COP26 bubbled away, I harboured a fascination with the etymology of the city’s name. Many Glaswegians will have heard Glasgow’s affectionate nickname, ‘The Dear Green Place’, bandied around over the years. Some may not know the origins, although I suspect most will be aware that it is the proposed translation of the Gaelic ‘Glas Chu’, the alleged derivative for Glasgow’s name. I obsessed over the pastoral landscape – this ‘dear green place’ – that preceded the homes, workplaces and motorway intersections that make up Glasgow today.

Delving into research about the city’s origins, I learnt that the story of Glasgow’s name is not clear-cut. The Gaelic derivatives and their various translations are warmly disputed. ‘The Dear Green Place’ is a relatively recent translation, finding favour midway through the twentieth century. Beforehand, amidst the enveloping smog of industrial Glasgow’s heyday, a translation of either ‘The Grey Blacksmith’ or ‘The Greyhound’ was championed instead. I was interested in this shift from grey to green. The two colours are so divergent and inspire very different images of our city. We associate grey with the unbreathable industrial metropolis; it evokes smog, dust, and tarmac. By contrast, green is reminiscent of the plenitude of the natural world; it summons leaves, grass, and ecological harmony.

Both ‘green’ and ‘grey’ – and their very different topographical associations – are enveloped within the name of our city: Glasgow.

Consulting the Gaelic etymological dictionary, I discovered that this translation shift was not just the result of a whimsical city rebrand to coincide with the great industrial decommission. It is cemented in linguistic fact. The Gaelic ‘Glas’, the believed root word for the first syllable of the city’s name, is chromatically dubious. ‘Glas’ was an umbrella term that simultaneously referred to both dull grey or pale green. This means that the ‘green’ translation we favour today is founded on the same Gaelic stem that facilitated the earlier ‘grey’ interpretation. Both ‘green’ and ‘grey’ – and their very different topographical associations – are enveloped within the name of our city: Glasgow.

There is, I believe, something to be grappled with here; a lesson to be learnt from those who paved the way for our city. For these people – our predecessors – grey and green were not necessarily each other’s inverse; the two colours could form a blend. It was the Gaelic name for this blend, this grey/green hue, that Glasgow was named after.

‘Green’, as we all know, is the colour of sustainability movements and carbon-neutral solutions. I wonder what hue of green you envisage whenever someone speaks of the ‘sustainable green’? For some, it may be the deep green of pine needles; for others, it might be the comforting green of a well-loved lawn. For our Prime Minister, it is apparently the insipid green of Kermit the Frog. Whatever green it is, I suspect it’s one rich with the potential for life. Not one that somewhere along the lines of history could be misinterpreted for grey. Certainly not the kind of green denoted by the Gaelic glas.

Whatever moves in the direction of ‘green’ we make, they will always inevitably be tainted with the ashen tones of the damage already done.

Yet, I think that the waxy green denoted by the Gaelic glas has radical potential. In this toned-down green, there exists a realistic hope. We all know that it is too late to return to the pre-industrial verdant greens of the past. Whatever moves in the direction of ‘green’ we make, they will always inevitably be tainted with the ashen tones of the damage already done. This is not to be pessimistic; it is a reality we are all slowly coming to terms with. The greyish-green of Glasgow’s glas is therefore the green of sustainability. It is the green of viable solutions and realistic responses to the climate crisis, a green that is cybernetically fused with the pre-existing grey.

People who live in the Southside of Glasgow are familiar with this waxy, pasty green. We see it every day. The more you look for it, the more you see it, and the more you see it, the more beautiful you realise it is. This green is optimistic; it is a green that fights to make itself visible through the grey. You find it in the dandelions growing through tarmac, in fox cubs nesting in abandoned mattresses, and in the moss reclaiming the walls of an abandoned industrial estate.

When the leaders of the world descend on Glasgow this week, I hope they will source inspiration from this mysterious pale green that gave our city its name. In the pale greens of Glasgow, I hope that we can all find hope.