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Greetings from the Academy of S. Gabriel!
You asked about the origin and meaning of the Irish name <Ealish> or <Eilish>.
<Eilish> appears to be an English respelling of the Irish name <Eilís>, in which the <s> is pronounced much like English <sh>. (The slash represents an acute accent over the preceding vowel.) This name is generally held to be an Irish borrowing of a pet form of the name <Elizabeth>, probably something like <Ellice>. [2, 7, 10]
There may, however, be another source. Old French <Aliz> (corresponding to English <Alice>) was borrowed into Irish as <Alis> or <Ailis>. [6] It's possible that what you've found is an English respelling of <Ailis>, though on the whole this seems less likely.
<Elizabeth> itself is of Hebrew origin, though it has been shaped by passage through Greek and Latin. [9] <Alice> is ultimately from Continental Germanic <Adalheid>, from which we also get <Adelaide>.
It's a little harder to deal with the question of meaning. Many popular name books purport to give the meanings of given names, but this is somewhat misleading. Part of what makes something a name rather than a description is the fact that it is purely a label: it has no intrinsic meaning. Given names certainly can have associations, and sometimes these associations are linguistic. For example, if you meet someone named <Hope>, you may think of the emotion. But many more associations are extra-linguistic: <Hope> may also call to mind a picture of the actress Hope Lange, and <Wendy> may suggest Peter Pan, or hamburgers. Such associations generally have nothing to do with the origin of the name.
When name books talk about the meaning of a given name, they're really talking about the meanings of words that are historically related to that name. For instance, <Margaret> is said to mean 'pearl' because it shares a common source with Greek <margaríte:s> 'a pearl'. (The <e:> stands for the Greek letter 'eta'.) Although some given names are invented out of whole cloth, most of the traditional ones are derived from roots that also gave rise to ordinary words, so it's possible to talk about their 'meanings' in this sense. This is the case for both <Elizabeth> and <Adalheid>.
<Adalheid> is a compound of the elements <Adal-> and <-heid>, which are related to modern German <edel> 'noble' and <Heide> 'heath, moor'. [5] However, it's unlikely that the combination itself was ever thought of as a meaningful semantic unit: 'noble heath' isn't a very likely concept! [11]
There's some question about the etymology of <Elizabeth>. The <Eli-> part of the name is definitely derived from Hebrew <'el> 'god', but our sources disagree on the origin of the rest of the name. None of the authors of these works was a specialist in Hebrew names, and unfortunately none gives the source of his information. The most common opinion seems to be that it is related to a word meaning 'oath', 'affirmation', 'to swear', or the like. [1, 4, 8] One source says that it's related to a word meaning 'satisfaction'. [6] And yet another says that it is related to the Hebrew for 'seven', probably meant metaphorically for 'perfection'. [3] This last, odd as it sounds, probably represents the most recent scholarship of the lot.
Josh Mittleman also contributed to this letter. We hope that the information is of use to you.
For the Academy,
Brian M. Scott
[1] Bahlow, Hans. _Deutsches Namenlexikon_ (Baden-Baden: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985).
[2] Coghlan, Ronan. _Irish Christian Names_ (London: Johnston and Bacon, 1979).
[3] De Felice, Emidio. _Dizionario dei Nomi Italiani_ (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., 1988).
[4] Linnartz, Kaspar. _Unsere Familiennamen_, 2 vols. (Bonn: Ferd. Duemmlers Verlag, 1958).
[5] Morlet, Marie-Thére\se. _Les Noms de Personne sur le Territoire de l'Ancienne Gaule du VIe au XIIe Sie\cle_, vol. II (Paris: E/ditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1972). (The backslash, '\', represents an accent grave over the preceding vowel.)
[6] O/ Corráin, Donnchadh & Fidelma Maguire. _Irish Names_ (Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1990).
[7] Reaney, P.H. & R.M. Wilson. _A Dictionary of English Surnames_ (London: Routledge, 1991).
[8] Tibón, Gutierre. _Diccionario Etimológico Comparado de Nombres Propios de Persona_ (Mexico City: Union Tipografica Editorial Hispano Americana, n.d.).
[9] Withycombe, E.G. _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: At the University Press, 1984).
[10] Woulfe, Patrick. _Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall: Irish Names and Surnames_ (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1967 [1923]).
[11] Many -- perhaps even most -- Germanic names of this type were formed by arbitrarily combining two existing name elements. (There were a few dozen elements in use; some were used only as first elements, some only as second elements, and some as both.)