Some of the peculiar features of English spelling were introduced by the Gutenberg's German-speaking employees. I bet it was them who started this 'ough' stuff. They probably heard so many different pronunciations of these words that they decided to spell them all with 'ough' and leave the fighting up to the natives.

I still don't believe that anybody was supposed to be named Turlough. It occurs to me, nonetheless, that Tur-low rhymes with 'furlough.'

I don't think there's anything difficult about the velar fricitive. Unusual, perhaps, but not difficult.