1. I'd say that it is the 1st "bh" that is silent rather than the 2nd one: [ga-(ı)v]. As Jaime (almost) points out, the lenited consonants "bh", "mh", "gh" and "dh" are often vocalised when they occur between vowels or between a vowel and a consonant, which means that they are pronounced more like vowels than consonants, and they then merge and interact with the neighbouring real vowels, often lengthening them or creating diphthongs. 2. The literal meaning of "Gabhaibh mo leisgeul" is "Accept (or take) my excuse". "Gabhaibh" is the plural imperative form (for giving an order to more than one person) of the verb "gabh" which, amongst other things, means "take". "Mas e do thoil e", on the other hand, literally means "If it is your will".

Hi Heather! 1. This phonetic phenomenon happens often in Gaelic. Once again, it's the same as in the case of the word "queue". It is pronounced completely different from it's spelling, and nobody really knows why, but the patterns tends to be that the consonants 'dh', 'bh', 'gh', 'mh' and even 'ch' fall silent when placed between two vowels. So there is no real grammatical function that one can pinpoint. 2. Gabhaibh mo leisgeul means "pardon me", and mas e do thoill e means "please". Two completely different objects in a sentence. I find simple explanations help me more than all kinds of advanced grammatical rules etc, so I hope this helps!

Tapadh leibh, Jaime and Coligno! I like to use the dictionary on learngaelic.net, as it usually has pronunciation clips. I had tried to search for 'gabhaibh' there, thinking it was a form of 'please.' Very helpful to know it's a form of the verb 'gabh'. Now I know why I couldn't find it in the dictionary!