On this old Irish Republic bond, Eamon de Valera signs his name “de Bhailéara”.
[url=http://www.adams.ie/catalogue_images/7030/large/A563.jpg]Bond[/url]
Presumably this is because he’s signing in the cursive forum of cló Gaelach, which has no letter v
Is this a general rule for spelling in cló Gaelach? For example, the scholar Brian Ó Cuív’s name Or the children of tin whistler Mary Bergin, whose name is du Vé (not an Irish name, but her ex-husband’s name) Brian Ó Cuíbh? Du Bhé? Assuming one really really wants to use cló Gaelach.
(By the way, I wanted to use cló Gaelach in this post with the “Gaelach” button but couldn’t figure out how to get the dots over the consonants. How does that work?)
“Éamonn de Bhailéara” is the usual Gaelicized form of his name, no matter which “cló” is used. The original spelling of this Spanish surname is de Valera.
“Brian Ó Cuív” on the other hand is an example of his grandfather’s attempt to simplify Irish spelling (Shán Ó Cuív, 1907). The traditional spelling of this Irish surname is Ó Caoimh. (see: http://www.dinglename.com/articles/article.asp?a=56)
It is not really a problem to use v in cló Gaelach (or j,k,q,w,x,y,z if needed).
