… and Ynys Forgan.
That’s a good one…
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I absolutely love this!!!
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Do we? I can’t think I’ve ever come across that. Cyngor Gwynedd always call themselves Cyngor Gwynedd, to the best of my knowledge…
I noticed today as I drove back into Cardiff that it says Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, no TM there either. Again though, no one really seems to talk about Sir Caerdydd.
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Wasn’t the English Shire Caernarfon, not Gwynedd? As Gwent was Monmouthshire, So, Gwyneddshire and Gwentshire 
didn’t (mercifully) exist, so we would never have had to fret about how to mutate their equivalent in Welsh! @garethrking ? what do you think?
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Gwent and Monmouthshire are different places.
Yes, but I mean when we do use Sir with Gwynedd, say for example when we talk about the old county/region, we would always say Sir Gwynedd wouldn’t we?
Also I have definitely heard and seen Cyngor Sir Gwynedd, I’m sure…maybe they’ve since shortened it.
Like they used to call it Cyngor Sir Dyfed, dain saith.
But way back Gwynedd was one of the old kingdoms of Wales, wasn’t it?
Yes, but the English didn’t recognise it did they? They wanted ‘counties’ - ‘shires’ with ‘County towns’ , so hearing Ceredigion, they, er…Englished it to Cardigan and, well, that had to be the Town of Cardiganshire! It never worked for Glamorgan, maybe partly due to the Marquis of Bute marrying Cardiff!? Monmouth was their county town in, OK @AnthonyCusack, what is now not quite the same as Gwent. What I am trying to get at is whether usage of English ‘shire’ fits with Sir + mutation showing long term use by Welsh speakers?
Venedotia!
Does it make any sense to throw Caerwent into this mix?
This is a tricky business. Why does Welsh use the English term sir for Welsh counties, and the Welsh term swydd for English counties? Swydd Dyfnaint, Swydd Efrog, Swydd Caint.
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I get where you’re coming from. Although it’s interesting that English shires are “swydd” in Welsh not sir
Swydd Gaerloyw, Swydd Derby, Swydd Stafford.
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Bringing this back briefly to the original question about Sir Benfro/Penfro - it is perhaps interesting that googling the two gives the following number of results.
Dyma’r canlyniadau:
Sir Penfro - 324,000
Sir Benfro - 603,000
Seems like the TM rule for swydd isn’t hard and fast either.
Dyfnaint ond Gaerloyw, Gaerlyr
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“Bwrdeistref Sirol Blaenau Gwent”, if it helps (it probably doesn’t).
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This is doing my head in…
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Although Kent and Devon are not commonly known with shire on the end. I only tend to hear Devonshire in relation to food products. So could that have a correlation?
I think it’s just Welsh being typically consistent where English isn’t, don’t you? 
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