Dublin City Council's street names in Irish: is any educated person in charge?

Dostoevsky

When it comes to DCC's placenames as Gaeilge, is any educated person in charge?

When I contact DCC they are absolutely brilliant at responding, telling me they'll sort it out and being absolutely sound as a pound. Lovely people, consistently. One and all. No bother there.

But then, two years after my initial request for action, nothing has changed. It's increasingly looking like they all attended the same PR course by the same government-connected PR companies, probably silently entitled "How to make the plebs feel great and do sfa about addressing their issue".

Yesterday I drove down what's known in English as Park Avenue (in Merrion). Unfortunately, I happened to look to my left at the street name sign and it broke my heart.

Páirc Ascaill

Heartbreaking. It's like somebody in DCC looked up "Park" and then "Avenue" and put them together. In fact, that's precisely what they did! Incredible. And this was one of the newer signs. Directly across the road was, in the old Irish pre-1957 Irish orthography, the still correct: Ascaill na Páirce. To think that some DCC employee (s) put up the new sign without looking ten metres across the road....

Indeed, and this makes Dublin City Council's contempt ever the greater: Dublin City Council is clearly aware that Ascaill na Páirce is the correct Irish, as this shows. Likewise, for the correct versions of streets and roads across the entire city.

Why, therefore, is our City Council persisting in bastardising the Irish language? Things are, I submit, getting worse. In the past 18 months, for instance, it has put "Sr. Connact" where "Sráid Ċonnaċt" was - i.e. the illiterate troglodytes (sorry, but it is true) who were given responsibility for changing the sign completely missed the buailte over both 'Cs', left them out when changing to the new spelling, which should of course be "Sráid Chonnacht". It's so hard to believe the incompetence, mismanagement and sheer unprofessionalism involved here.

Now, why is Dublin City Council not exercising basic professionalism by ensuring that each street name which is erected in Dublin is verified as authentic by a section of Dublin City Council which is educated on these issues, or by the Irish Placenames Commission in the Phoenix Park in Dublin? Why? It's basic respect. There are no excuses for it - ignorance is never an excuse when using public funds which allow DCC to do these things correctly.

With Ireland apparently due to get post codes soon, is there some Dublin City Council plan to replace every single street name in Dublin? If so, we should be told. If so, we should also be told that there will be correct, independently verified Irish versions put on all these streets and not some cobbled-together pseudo-Irish version from DCC's local Area Office.

/end despair at ignorance and contempt.



PS: Is it possible to embed photos in this forum? I've used [ IMG] and [ /img] (without the spaces, obviously) to show the above sign to no avail.

Pandoras Twist

Have to say, I'd prefer resources weren't wasted on changing street signs.

Dostoevsky

Pandoras Twist wrote: »

Have to say, I'd prefer resources weren't wasted on changing street signs.

They wouldn't have to be wasted - and I agree with you it is waste because they should have been done correctly at the start - if they were put up correctly in the first place. Any cost in putting up the correct versions is entirely caused by DCC not putting them up properly in the first place. Nobody else is to blame, if we are to be honest about it.

The problem here seems to be that individual employees of DCC (and the public service generally) have no individual responsibility for their mistakes while in the employment of DCC (and the public service generally). That needs to be changed.

Toby Take a Bow

Same thing with Golden Lane. I think one is Lana Or and the other is Lana Na Or, or something (my Irish, as you can see, is awful). Not sure which one is right.

Dostoevsky

Toby Take a Bow wrote: »

Same thing with Golden Lane. I think one is Lana Or and the other is Lana Na Or, or something (my Irish, as you can see, is awful). Not sure which one is right.

Yeah, that's typical. All across the city it's the same sloppiness on the part of Dublin City Council. I'm just hoping there is some unspoken plan to put all the correct versions, which the City Council at official level know, on signs when the new postcodes come into place. I'm completely surmising there, however. But it would seem logical that they'll change every streetname not just in Dublin but in the state when the postcodes come into place.


PS: The correct name for "Golden Lane" should be "Lána an Óir", according to DCC's Sráidainmneacha Bhaile Átha Cliath.

spurious

Ah, an tuiseal ginideach, the bane of so many people's lives.

The best direct translation I ever saw was on a Dublin Bus timetable - Beresford place - Plás Dúinsméara.

Dola-Droichead grates every time I see it.

BeerNut

"Droichead na Scuab" is my personal favourite, though that was presumably an Irish Rail employee who was getting the translations done last thing on a Friday, rather than someone in DCC.

"Fionn Radharc" isn't correct either, is it?

uch

It's not just the City council D, I'm in Dún Laoghaire and almost all new signs seem to have been made by Illiterate foreigners (no offence to foreigners)

mikemac1

Was there a feeling that Fairview was more desirable then Ballybough?

What happened?

So is it Ballybough Strand or Fairview Strand, mad one

Gae

Well, they did compile and approve a complete book of street names in Irish a few years ago. It's available here (PDF): http://www.dublincity.ie/SiteCollectionDocuments/Sr%C3%A1idainmneacha%20Bhaile%20Atha%20Cliath.pdf

Some of your concerns are addressed in it - it seems to be done quite professionally in the sense that there aren't spelling mistakes etc. The example you gave, "Park Avenue" is down as "Ascaill na Páirce" which I think is a reasonable translation.

This list is the approved list - so these are the official translations. Obviously it will take a while to replace all the street signs, so older versions are still up in many places.

The official street names have had some criticism, though. In many cases, older forms which were very different from the English names were just thrown away. For example, Nassau Street for a long time was known as "Sráid Thobar Phádraig", but is down as "Sráid Nassau" now. In many cases where English names/words where 'Irish-ized', they just use the English word now. Luke Street down as Sráid Luke, but I think it used to be Sráid Lucais, which some might prefer.

There are things about the method they used to compile the list that I disagree with - but this are matters of policy, rather than issues of competence. Certainly it was compiled by 'educated' people, to say otherwise would be very unfair.

EDIT: sorry, I missed the line where you mentioned the street names book - I thought you didn't know about it, so my response isn't really relevant now

CIARAN_BOYLE

Dostoevsky wrote: »

Yesterday I drove down what's known in English as Park Avenue (in Merrion). Unfortunately, I happened to look to my left at the street name sign and it broke my heart.

Páirc Ascaill

Heartbreaking. It's like somebody in DCC looked up "Park" and then "Avenue" and put them together. In fact, that's precisely what they did! Incredible. And this was one of the newer signs. Directly across the road was, in the old Irish pre-1957 Irish orthography, the still correct: Ascaill na Páirce. To think that some DCC employee (s) put up the new sign without looking ten metres across the road....

There is one of these in SDCC too

Del2005

Dostoevsky wrote: »

But it would seem logical that they'll change every streetname not just in Dublin but in the state when the postcodes come into place.

I doubt they will be changing street names for our attempt at postcodes, since the proposals aren't going down to that level. But this being a broke country I can just see them spending millions to change them, and then millions more to fix the f**k ups like this thread is pointing out

uch wrote: »

It's not just the City council D, I'm in Dún Laoghaire and almost all new signs seem to have been made by Illiterate foreigners (no offence to foreigners)

Ah now come on, I'm sure foreigners can speak/write better Irish than most Irish people. Is there still a requirement for civil/public servants to have higher level Irish? Bit ironic if it's still required to have a higher level Irish leaving cert and they still get it wrong.

bdr529

the estate where I live is named as gaeilge. I used to give my street name as gaeilge because that is what the sign says on the wall.................
had such a pain in my rocks having to spell the word 'ascaill' when asked for my address that i ended up reverting to the english form, even when you write it down for people on forms etc they can't seem to get their heads around it and I would have to point out that ascaill = avenue

AnalogueKid

I agree with the OP, the frequency of errors and poor translations on Irish streetsigns is lamentable.

The worst example I can remember was on the old "Welcome to Dublin" sign in Milltown, D6 (remember the "Twinned with Barcelona, San Jose, Liverpool etc" sign?). The word Baile had a fada over the letter a!!!

Maybe someone who has better Gaeilge than me might be able to confirm this - Isn´t "An Lár" on the front of Dublin buses completely wrong? AFAIK you cannot directly translate "The Centre", but should rather use "Lár na Cathrach".

The whole Fairview / Ballybough thing is a result of snobbery not a translation error.

Stevek101

AnalogueKid wrote: »

Maybe someone who has better Gaeilge than me might be able to confirm this - Isn´t "An Lár" on the front of Dublin buses completely wrong? AFAIK you cannot directly translate "The Centre", but should rather use "Lár na Cathrach".

They finally corrected that at the end of last year. It is albeit slowing appearing on all buses over the past few months.

Stripey Cat

Why can't you say "the centre" as "an lár"?

Gumbo

bdr529 wrote: »

the estate where I live is named as gaeilge. I used to give my street name as gaeilge because that is what the sign says on the wall.................
had such a pain in my rocks having to spell the word 'ascaill' when asked for my address that i ended up reverting to the english form, even when you write it down for people on forms etc they can't seem to get their heads around it and I would have to point out that ascaill = avenue

If somebody rang me and gave me their address as ascail, i would ask them to spell it too in fairness.

Del2005

AnalogueKid wrote: »

Maybe someone who has better Gaeilge than me might be able to confirm this - Isn´t "An Lár" on the front of Dublin buses completely wrong? AFAIK you cannot directly translate "The Centre", but should rather use "Lár na Cathrach".

Stevek101 wrote: »

They finally corrected that at the end of last year. It is albeit slowing appearing on all buses over the past few months.

FFS that's taking it a bit too far, ever since I've been a child I got the An Lár bus to town. Granted it wasn't correct but I don't think many people got confused.

Victor

Gae wrote: »

Well, they did compile and approve a complete book of street names in Irish a few years ago. It's available here (PDF): http://www.dublincity.ie/SiteCollectionDocuments/Sr%C3%A1idainmneacha%20Bhaile%20Atha%20Cliath.pdf

I've discusses this with council officials and they considered it about 98% accurate. However, based on my own research I would estimate it as 90-95% accurate.

AnalogueKid wrote: »

Maybe someone who has better Gaeilge than me might be able to confirm this - Isn´t "An Lár" on the front of Dublin buses completely wrong? AFAIK you cannot directly translate "The Centre", but should rather use "Lár na Cathrach".

Its a 'Dublinbusism' like "Phibsboro".

The whole Fairview / Ballybough thing is a result of snobbery not a translation error.

essentially, although as a non Dubliner, I would associate Ballybough with Ballybough Road and Fairview with Fairview Strand.

Stripey Cat wrote: »

Why can't you say "the centre" as "an lár"?

Because in Ireland "The Centre" means a suburban shopping locale. It would make much sense for long distance routes like the 33, 65, 66,67, & 84 which pass may centres before reaching the city centre.

boosh_fan

OP, you could make a complaint with An Coimisineir Teanga http://www.coimisineir.ie/.

I'm not sure this would be his remit, but there is a section on placenames and it would be his resposibility to investigate whether DCC are in breach of the Official Languages Act 2003.

Micilin Muc

I'll never forget the sign I saw in Tallaght which had Old Bawn/Gleann Cuilinn - 3km. Completely different places!

charlemont

Its not just in Dublin either, Its occurring all over the place now especially on the newer signs, The spellings too are nothing short of amateurish.