The Margin notes that the Great Southern group has opted for discretion in naming its new hotel in Derry. The hotel will be known as the City Hotel, neatly sidestepping the thorny issue of whether to allude to Derry or Londonderry in the name.

But even so, subtle differences emerged in an Aer Rianta statement on the development last weekend.

Great Southern's chief executive, Mr Eamonn McKeown, spoke of its future customers in the "city of Derry". Yet the comments of the North's Minister of Social Development, Mr Nigel Dodds, referred to the hotel's role in the "successful regeneration of the centre of Londonderry".

While suspecting that some hardline members of Mr Dodds' anti-Agreement Democratic Unionist Party would well be inclined to discourage developments in the North by companies owned by the State in the Republic, the good minister "warmly" welcomed the initiative.

How times change, eh?