How do you pronounce
Deirdre? Have you known many Deirdres and how did they pronounce it?
I've only known one
Deirdre, and she used Dir-druh, alhough she was mostly called Deird.
*****
And last of all an Admiral came,
A terrible man with a terrible name,—
A name which you all know by sight very well;
But which no one can speak, and no one can spell.
Robert Southey, "The March to Moscow"