As someone who always has his name pronounced different ways (not Irish) I have to say I could not have guessed “Meadhbh” if my life depended on it.

So, basically, written Irish isn't so much a language, as, rather, a form of encryption somehow devised by the Irish to prohibit communication?

Phil Bolger was right: whomever devised such spellings, to "represent" Irish speech, deserves some quality-time in hell.

Yeeks.