Do and a

Do agus a

What’s the difference between do and  a ? 

When talking about going to countries or towns, it’s normal to use a a shortened form of the preposition do Like do , a lenites the name of the place (when possible).   And adds dh before a vowel or fh+vowel .

But as we’ve seen already, some countries and towns in Gaelic start with ‘the’: the France, the Italy, the Little Bay (Oban), the Garrison (Fort William), so we need to say ‘to the’:   don , nowadays usually softened to   dhan .     

Dhan lenites the name in exactly the same way as anns a’ (in the): the consonants c, f, g, m, p change to ch, fh, gh, mh, ph, but d and t don’t change, and s gets knocked out by a t .