Hello All! Quick question for any who can help. Does anyone know the most common way to pronounce “fómhair” in Ulster (particularly in Gweedore)? Foclóir pronunciations sound like FO-wurr, but I’ve also heard it pronounced FO-vurr on RTE Radio by Donegal speakers. I believe I have also heard something like FO-way/FOY, which seems most logical to me, based on the spelling. Thank you to anyone who has some insight into this!

Yes, the pronunciation with ‘w’ and that with ‘v’ can both be heard in Donegal. On the RnaG programme Barrscéalta the host always states the date, and in the case of September and October: …an Xú lá de mhí Mheán/Dheireadh Fómhair - the regular host pronounces it with “w” while her stand-in has the ‘v’ version. (Just in case you’re not familiar with the show.) I tried the two months as well as a few phrases with an fhómhair on ‘abair.ie. The female voice pronounced it ‘v’, the male voice ‘w’. I asked a Gweedore native speaker to pronounce it - it was with ‘v’. She said it was something that had never registered with her. I don’t know if it’s a geographical thing or just personal. I must delve deeper next time I’m in Gweedore, but that won’t be till Easter at the earliest.
Then of course there’s the ‘(f)oh-(w)ee’ version. Not every Gweedore native pronounces slender ‘r’ like that, or at least not consistently. I’ve heard ‘obair ’ pronounced as ‘ubber’ and ‘ubb-ee’ by the same speaker in the same conversation. On Barrscéalta the other day I heard one saying Tá lúcháir air…in true Gweedore style with the air in both words like the ‘i’ in mite, yet a few seconds later he pronounced Gaoth Dobhair not as ‘Doh-ee’ but as English ‘Door’.

Now I'm curious as to if this broad 'v' pronunciation is viable in all contexts in all contexts in these particular regions/among these particular speakers of Donegal Irish. Apparently (i.e. based on one of the videos I saw from Ciarán Dunbar) in Rathlin broad bh/mh was pronounced (or could be pronounced) similar to a broad 'v' in pronunciation, more specifically somewhere between the pronuncation of /w/ and /v/ (i.e. a bilabial approximant (/β̞ /)as apposed to the labio-velar approximant found throughout most of Ireland, and the bilabial fricatave of most of Munster and parts of Connacht in certain contexts, which is the traditional pronunciation (i.e. /β̞/) found in Waterford.)

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I'm an intermediate speaker of the Corca Dhuibhne dialect of Irish and also have knowledge on the old spelling
Soir gaċ síar, fé ḋeireaḋ thíar

An-suimiúil go deimhin! Thank you both for taking the time to share these observations!

For some reason I think I may like the FO-vurr version, but I’m not sure why…it rolls of tongue.