Names of Irish towns

dublincc2

Something that always makes me cringe and slightly infuriates me is the renaming of certain towns post-independence.

In some cases I agree with names being changed, Kingstown, Queenstown and Londonderry are three names that would obviously be unacceptable in any Irish Republic. However in the case of the two of the above in ROI, the renaming was a complete fcuk-up. Instead of simply renaming Kingstown back to its historical name of Dunleary, they made the Irish spelling the only official one, despite everyone pronouncing it as the original name. There is simply no excuse for not having this as a bilingual name like everywhere else.

Worse than this however is Queenstown. Instead of renaming it back to Cove, they butchered the spelling to make it look Irish when there is no Irish translation. Again, why couldn’t they have made the name bilingual, Cove being the English name and Baile Bhallúin (the Irish name for the old townland) as the other name?

Maryborough and Philipstown in Queen’s and King’s Counties respectively are also stupidly renamed. This is as above to get back at ‘muh Brits 800 years blablabla’ but has no historical justification whatsoever. Leaving aside the fact that Mary I was a Catholic who oppressed Protestants, something one would think the early Irish state could overlook, the history of these towns began with the English plantation. The only names they have ever known are the colonial names. Unlike the above there is no historical precedent. Also as anyone who has been to Portlaoise lately will have observed, it’s not exactly the most Irish of places for a town with an Irish name. Whenever I hear some African or other foreign bloke try and pronounce ‘Portlaoise’ or ‘Laois’ I have to squint my eyes with the cringe. Giving the town its rightful name of Maryborough back is the least of that place’s problems.

Lastly, the counties. Leaving aside the fact that Offaly and Laois don’t work as local government units and should really be partitioned between Westmeath, Tipperary, Kildare, Carlow and Kilkenny, the names are equally retarded and ill-thought out. The ancient kingdom of Offaly only had a small amount of territory in todays county, it stretched from Kildare town to Mountmellick, both of which are not in the county. Likewise the Gaelic territory of Leix doesn’t correspond with the county boundaries the only territory that has ever encompassed the land of the two counties were King’s and Queen’s Counties. The names should have stayed as there was no real reason to change them apart from narrow bucolic FF nationalism.

If you think that restoring the names of the above counties is going against our national independence, there is a city across the Atlantic called New York, and in that city are the boroughs of, I’m being serious BTW you can look it up, Queens and Kings (Brooklyn). And last time I checked the United States is very much an independent republic.

I think it’s common sense to right the above wrongs.

magicbastarder

"Giving the town its rightful name of Maryborough back is the least of that place’s problems."

you want to start renaming towns? look at how well the LondonDingle debacle went down. the name of a town is what the locals call it (or want to call it). how do you think the residents of portlaoise would react to their town being renamed to maryborough?

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121103919#Comment_121103919

It was still called Maryborough for a long time post 1922.

Rathluirc is an example of a renaming attempt that failed to stick, likewise Muine Bheag.

The OP should take a chill pill.

dublincc2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121103919#Comment_121103919

I don’t think many of the residents would care, especially considering a huge number of them aren’t even Irish.

Jellybaby_1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058313425/names-of-irish-towns

Regarding Queenstown/Cove/Cobh. What was the original name before it was Cove, Queenstown or Cobh? Or did it even have a name before then? I'm just asking as there is no letter 'V' in the Irish language.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121106564#Comment_121106564

Before the naval base was established, there was a village called (in English) Ballyvoloon. The naval base, when opened, was "the cove of Cork" or simply "the Cove". They were initially regarded as separate places, and the two names continued in use, but in time the two settlements grew together and in 1849 they were jointly named "Queenstown".

The next change of name didn't happen "post-independence", as the OP suggests, but during the War of Independence. The Urban District Council resolved to recognise the authority of Dáil Éireann, and cut off connection with the (British) Department of Local Government in Dublin. Shortly after that, they resolved to change the name of the town. As a matter of (UK) law they had no authority to do this, but this didn't bother them, since they didn't recognise British authority in Ireland. Both Cork County Council and the (Dáil Éireann) Minister for Local Government recognised and confirmed the name change.

Precisely because the name change was done (in UK eyes) unlawfully, it was a revolutionary act, and this gives it a degree of historical significance.

Jellybaby_1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121107411#Comment_121107411

Very clear and precise explanation Peregrinus, thank you. It does seem that the OP is right that Cove was changed to sound 'more Irish' (Cobh), especially since the séimhiú was consigned to history. But surely that's been going on a lot since then. I often think a lot of the Irish language has been 'made up' due to the fact that there just aren't enough words to speak it fluently with the modern language we use today. I wonder how other languages have coped. I think this has been discussed on Boards before but I'll never find it I'm sure. I quite like Ballyvoloon.

pjordan

One of the ones I have an issue with is Maam in Coonemara. The Irish for it is "Teach Doite" presumably because once upon a time there was a burnt house there, but surely Maam itself is of Irish origin?

magicbastarder

as gaeilge, it's 'mám' which means 'pass'

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121107937#Comment_121107937

Cóbh is a gaelicisation of the English word Cove. This is unusual for an Irish placename — most are anglicisations of Irish words (including Ballyvoloon) or sometimes Norse words. It would seem bizarre to take exception to gaelicisation if you have been surrounded all your life by anglicisation and have never seen it as a problem.

As for a lot of the Irish language being "made up" — all living languages acquire new words all the time; that's one of the primary markers that identifies them as living languages. And they most often do it by adopting and adapting words from other languages. English, as it happens, has a far greater proportion of words of this kind than Irish does. In fact, it has a bigger proportion of borrowed words than the great majority of languages do — as one linguist put it, English doesn't borrow from other languages so much as follow them down dark alleys, beat them up and go through their pockets. So, once again, for an English-speaker to object to borrowed words in Irish is . . . weird.

magicbastarder

just an aside, the OP mentions Londonderry seemingly in the context of names having been changed. i just learned that in 1984 the town council changed its name from Londonderry City Council to Derry City Council; but a subsequent court case (i think prompted by that change) upheld the official name of the city as Londonderry.

Why is Dublin not Dubh Linn or Linn Dubh, in Irish?

Or called HurdleFord in English?

Why 2 conflicting names? The English being an anglicanisation of a separate Irish name.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121107966#Comment_121107966

Maam/Maam Cross

An Teach Doite is the Irish name of Maam Cross, which is a different place from Maam.

Maam (An Mám) is a village in Connemara. It lies at the south end of the Maam valley, which runs north and west towards Leenane. Both the valley and the village are named from the Irish word mám, a mountain pass.

Maam Cross is about 8 km south of Maam. It's a junction on the Galway to Clifden road. It gets its name because it's where you would turn off if you were going to Maam.

A name like Maam Cross (or Limerick Junction, another example) never originates with the inhabitants of the locality. Names of this kind are conferred by outsiders, who only consider the place in the context of its relationship to somewhere else that is of more interest to them. The inhabitants of Maam Cross most likely did call it An Teach Doite; it was probably people passing through from Galway who started to call it Maam Cross.

Dublin

For a related example of a place having different names in Irish and in English, the city of Dublin takes its English name originally from two Irish words, dubh (black) and linn (pool). This refers to a now-drained pool of the River Poddle which was just south of Dublin Castle.

An Irish speaker would put these words in the opposite order, the noun first and then the adjective - linn dubh, a black pool. The adjective-noun order is Norse.

The Viking settlement of Dublin had a mixed Norse and Irish population, whose languages influenced one another. Dubh linn comes either from Norse speakers borrowing Irish words but joining them in a Norse way, or from Irish speakers, joining words in a Norse way under the influence of their Norse neighbours (or possibly their Norse masters; Dublin was a slave market).

Meanwhile the wild (but free) Irish living in the mountains south of the city had their own name for the settlement: Baile Átha Cliath, the town of the ford of hurdles. This refers to a ford across the Liffey which was a little way upstream from (and was probably older than) the Viking settlement.

Both names are authentic. They were used by different communities to refer to the same place. The Irish-speaking community within the city of Dublin disappeared fairly early on, so all Irish-speakers used Baile Átha Cliath. But it left its influence on the Norse and, in time, English name of the city.

magicbastarder

Peregrinus, was it yourself who mentioned the disparity between the Irish and English names for Leixlip, which is similar to the Dubh Linn/Baile Atha Cliath phenomenon ? i only read about that recently - they both mean the same, but 'Leixlip' is derived from the norse, Laks Lep - which also means 'salmon's leap'.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121108166#Comment_121108166

Councils in Northern Ireland (or, for that matter, in the Republic) have no power to rename their cities, districts, etc. Local government entities are established and named by national law, not by local bye-laws. In NI cities are usually established and named by royal charter.

So, if the city council wanted the city to be officially renamed "Derry", the way to do that would be to petition the King (or Queen, as it was at the time) to grant a new royal charter conferring that name. The monarch would, if so advised by the relevant government minister, grant the charter, and Bob's your uncle. But of course petitioning his gracious majesty for a royal charter is not a very republican thing to do, is it? Not a good look. So, instead, the Council changed its own name, which it had power to do all on its own without any humble petition for the monarch's gracious act. For good measure, they also changed the name of the airport serving the city, which they owned.

I wasn't aware that there was a court case about this (but that doesn't mean there wasn't one).

magicbastarder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry_City_Council%2C_Re_Application_for_Judicial_Review

seemingly the council did apply for a name change for the city itself, but it was refused.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121108273#Comment_121108273

Dunno if it was me who posted about this before but, yeah, this is correct. Leixlip was a Viking settlement — you could take a longship up the Liffey that far — and was named for a natural weir (which presumably was the barrier to taking the longships any further).

The Irish name, Léim an Bhradáin, is a direct translation of the Norse name. It's a much newer name, though — it's not recorded before the nineteenth century.

The Leix- in Leixlip is cognate with lax, as in gravlax, the Scandinavian dish of cured salmon with dill, and lox, as in bagels and lox, as found in kosher delicatessens all over the world. It has nothing at all to do with Leix, the now-obsolete anglicisation of Laois

Jellybaby_1

Wasn't there some talk about changing Londonderry/Derry to Foyle? It was hoped it might answer the divisive question of using the 'London' or not. Haven't heard much about it though.

whisky_galore

I'd say the Londonderry/Derry names are so engrained almost as a form of identity any new renaming attempt would be ignored by both sides of the name debate. People usually don't like being told what to do by outsiders, see Dingle debacle.

hsushsjvsux

But certain communities would attack non Irish calling it maryborough I'd reckon. Be only using it as excuse but would happen.

And a lot of people were slaughtered to control laois and create maryborough

hsushsjvsux

What part of mountmellick are u claiming offaly streched to the kilcavan football club area of mountmellick parish would have being in an offaly parish originally. The people that live there also don't really consider them laois people (not in a gaa perspective anyway).

Mountmellick is only a parish made up much later taken from several other parishes cause population got to big.

hsushsjvsux

Leaving the name as King's County and Queens County would be a bit disrespectful to old septs from the area.

When u look at 7 septs of laois territory county boundary works out fairly well to what would have been under omoore control.l pre plantation. A lot of surnames originating from 7 septs are still around laois especially the western part or almost effectively the the hurling area in laois.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121230367#Comment_121230367

A lot of people were slaughtered to create counties, an English invention based on Shires, but there's no talk of abolishing counties. In fact we are fiercely wedded to them.