Irish orthography

⟨v⟩ occurs in a small number of (mainly onomatopoeic) native words (e.g. vácarnach "to quack" and vrác "caw") and colloquialisms (e.g. víog for bíog "chirp" and vís for bís "screw").

After a short vowel, an unwritten epenthetic /ə/ gets inserted between ⟨l, n, r⟩ + ⟨b, bh, ch, f, g, mh⟩ (as well as ⟨p⟩, when derived from devoiced ⟨b, bh, mh⟩), when within a morpheme boundary, e.g. gorm /ˈɡɔɾˠəmˠ/ "blue", dearg /ˈdʲaɾˠəɡ/ "red", dorcha /ˈd̪ˠɔɾˠəxə/ "dark", ainm /ˈanʲəmʲ/ "name", deilgneach /ˈdʲɛlʲəɟnʲəx/ "prickly, thorny"’ leanbh /ˈl̠ʲanˠəw/ "child", airgead /ˈaɾʲəɟəd̪ˠ/ "silver, money".

Epenthesis does not occur after long vowels and diphthongs, e.g. téarma /tʲeːɾˠmˠə/ "term" or dualgas /ˈd̪ˠuəlˠɡəsˠ/ "duty", or across morpheme boundaries (i.e. after prefixes and in compound words), e.g. garmhac /ˈɡaɾˠwak/ "grandson" (from gar- "close, near" + mac "son"), an-chiúin /ˈan̪ˠçuːnʲ/ "very quiet" (from an- "very" + ciúin "quiet"), carrbhealach /ˈkaːɾˠvʲalˠəx/ "carriageway, roadway" (from carr "car" + bealach "way, road").

However, as printed and electronic material like books, newspapers and web pages use Roman type almost invariably, the tittle is generally shown.

Irish does not graphemically distinguish dotted i and dotless ı, i.e. they are not different letters as they are in, e.g. Turkish and Azeri.

A hyphen (fleiscín) is used in Irish after ⟨t, n⟩ when prefixed to a masculine vowel-initial word as an initial mutation, e.g. an t-arán "the bread", a n-iníon "their daughter".

A hyphen is also used in compound words under certain circumstances: An apostrophe (uaschamóg) is used to indicate an omitted vowel in the following cases: Capitalisation rules are similar to English.

The literary Classical Irish which survived till the 17th century was archaic; the first attempt at simplification was not until 1639.

The idea of a spelling reform, linked to the use of Roman or Gaelic type, was controversial in the early decades of the 20th century.

[19] When Éamon de Valera became President of the Executive Council after the 1932 election, policy reverted to older spellings, which were used in the enrolled text of the 1937 Constitution.

[19] In 1941, de Valera decided to publish a "popular edition" of the Constitution with simplified spelling and established a committee of experts, which failed to agree on recommendations.

[19][20] Instead, the Oireachtas' own translation service prepared a booklet, Litriú na Gaeilge: Lámhleabhar an Chaighdeáin Oifigiúil, published in 1945.

[20] Some pre-reform spellings criticised by T. F. O'Rahilly and their modern forms include:[19] beirbhiughadh → beiriú, imthighthe → imithe, faghbháil → fáil, urradhas → urrús, filidheacht → filíocht.

[22] A review of the written standard, including spelling, was announced in 2010, aiming to improve "simplicity, internal consistency, and logic".