A mere fortnight ago I wrote a wee thing on the Irish language.

Some idiots couldn’t recognise their own name if it didn’t have a fada over a vowel. I thought it was a flash in the pan, but never underestimate an idiot.

Not many will remember, but Irish used to have its own alphabet. What’s more, that alphabet was considerably shorter than the English one. Off the top of my head, there was no J, K, Q, V, W, X, Y or Z. Now in addition to the troublesome “fada” there was also the “buailte” which was a little dot over a consonant which changed the pronunciation of that letter.

In my younger years I used to spend hours having to carefully write out that alphabet. It was a relief when they decided to scrap it, even if it did have it’s own quirkiness.

When they switched to the English alphabet they got around the troublesome buailte by just sticking an H after the letter, but for some reason left the fada.

A simple solution to the current problem would be to do the same with letters with a fada – stick another letter after.

Ciarán Ó Cofaigh would become Ciaraxn Ox Cofaigh.

Simples.