"neirt" versus "nert"

[David L. White]

> Wouldn't <nert> and <neirt> both be palatalized?

        No.  /e/ is traditionally held to have palatalized preceding
consonants, leaving following consonanats as they were.  Confusion of
spelling between the two types ("nert" for "neirt"), which occasionally
occurs (if I am remembering correctly), probably indicates the difficulty of
pronouncing palatalized /r/, which is mostly (or entirely?) gone from modern
Irish.

Dr. David L. White