"In any case this is all a red herring and adds not a jot to the debate." You're right there - but it was you that raised it Trevor. And since I agree with you there, you wouldn't want me to hunt around looking for other ways of spelling your name?

The only point to it all, from my end was that Doire and Derry are not different names, but the same name spelt correctly in two languages, and you clearly know enough about the languages involved to have known that anyway.

The reason I gave my own name as an example, and used the version of it which looks the strangest is prely because it does look so strange, not because I think it's a more Republican way of spelling it or anything - it's a bit like George Bernard Shaw showing how in Engoish you can spell "fish" as "ghoti" - "f" from cough, "o" from women and "ti" from attention, for example.

"Where did you learn your Irish then Trev?" from Brendy seemed a reasonable thing to say, the kind of thing you'd say to someone in a pub that might turn the conversation from an argument about politics into one about linguistics, which is clearly something you are pretty interested in. Why read an offensive intent into a remark that can be interpreted in a non-offensive way?

And of course, that's the kind of side issue that is much better dealt with by personal messages, rather than diverting the course of a discussion about more serious things. But since you've clocked in as a GUEST, that isn't an available option.

One more point - and please, this is really meant to be helpful, and it's meant for several of the people who've contribute to this thread. It's easier to read a post of more than a full lines if you break it up into paragraphs, and the way to do that is to put a < at the end of the paragraph, then a P, and then another > (and the reason I have to describe it in that way is because you'd just see another paragraph break, rather than anything showing how it is done.