I remember accompanying a young man in a Northern Ireland election back in sixty-nine, before the shooting started. Being "People's Democracy" he was trying for votes across the sectarian divide. But there's a code in versions of the name. Any time he was speaking to a Catholic crowd it was "My name is Liam" and any time they were Protestants it was "My name is Billy".

But Willie doesn't have a sectarian colour. I'd say Jack Campin there has got it wrong with "There can't have been many Catholic Willies in the last 300 years." I don't think my father or my great-uncle, both called Willie, would have agreed with that.