The RC Killaloe Parish records alone show six (6) different variants:
Geeran, Geran, Gerane, Gerin, Guerin, Guiran.

A gravestone in St. Flannan’s cathedral, Killaloe, has Gerun.

The Tithe Applotments for Ballina add two more : Geeron, Georon.

A listing of Deaths from Civil Registers in Lombard Street, Dublin for the periods 1864 – 1870 and 1890 – 1899 (copy appended) yields about ten (10) more.

Between these and other sources, trawled through in the course of this research, I have come across almost thirty (30) spelling variations on the name; these are :

Undoubtedly this list is incomplete. It is most likely that there are yet more ‘variations on a G-string’ awaiting discovery.

Edward McLysaght, the genealogist, had a similar experience when researching his own family name.

“In the records and documents in the English language which I have examined, I have come across no less than thirty–eight variants on the name McLysaght. Many of these are obviously due to the unfamiliarity of law clerks and copyists with Irish names, as for example when it appears in three distinct forms in the same document or, to take another name, when Keating is so far mangled as to be written ‘Kerther’.”^[2]