Lairig Ghru

The Lairig Ghru (Scottish Gaelic: Làirig Dhrù) is one of the mountain passes through the Cairngorms of Scotland. The route and mountain pass partially lies on the Mar Lodge Estate.

Like many traditional routes, the ends of the route through the Lairig Ghru are like the ends of a frayed rope. From the south the Lairig Ghru can be approached from Braemar though Glen Lui, or Glen Dee, and from Blair Atholl through Glen Tilt. From the north the Lairig Ghru can be approached from Glen More through the Chalamain Gap, and from Aviemore through the Rothiemurchus Forest by way of the Crossroads above Allt Drùidh.

Watson gives the place name "Làirig Dhrù", meaning pass of Dhru or Druie, with the local pronunciation "Laarig Groo". He suggests the "probable" derivation as from Drùdhadh 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”

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.

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Wikipedia