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When Gaelicisation works, and when it doesn't

  • 15-11-2010 2:07pm
    #1
    Snickers Man
    Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭


    Quite by coincidence I came on here to make this post and then saw a (slightly) similar discussion recently started about the propriety of removing monuments glorifying British administrators, rulers and soldiers from prominent Irish locations after independence.


    But to continue with my question: why did some place names that were Gaelicized after independence catch on and others didn't?

    There are probably people living in Dun Laoghaire or Cobh who never knew that these towns were once known as Kingstown and Queenstown respectively. Or that Laois and Offaly were once known as Queen's County and King's County. And I have never heard Port Laoise referred to by anything other than that name, yet it has only been so called officially since the early 20th Century.

    On the other hand I have never ever met anybody who comes from Rath Luirc or Muine Bheag. Anybody from those towns or surrounding areas ALWAYS refers to them as Charleville and Bagenalstown. And imagine how stupid, perhaps I should say more stupid, David McWilliams' description of early morning commuters from Meath would sound if he had to call them Ceannannas Mor Angels?

    Happily for Ireland's stereotyper in chief that town is still universally referred to by its English name of Kells.

    So why did some names catch on with the general populace while others didn't? I'm really curious as to why this should be so.

    Serious answers only, please. If I wanted jokes I would have posted in After Hours.


«13

Comments

  • #2
    Stabshauptmann
    Registered Users Posts: 4,885 ✭✭✭Stabshauptmann


    The names that caught on that you mentioned replaced the likes of Kingstown, Kings County, Maryborough i.e. very explicit reference to the English monarchy. Kells, wouldnt have been so obnoxious to the newly independant.

    As an aside though, you mentioned Port Laoise, pronounced port-leash-a. You will not find anyone in Laois who will pronounce it that way, they will all leave off the "a" at the end, and spell it portlaoise. So maybe thats not a perfect example of Gaelicisation that worked


  • #3
    Snickers Man
    Registered Users Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    Stabshauptmann wrote: »
    The names that caught on that you mentioned replaced the likes of Kingstown, Kings County, Maryborough i.e. very explicit reference to the English monarchy.

    But then why does Charleville retain its old name? I would have thought that would be even more obvious.


  • #4
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    Snickers Man wrote: »
    But then why does Charleville retain its old name? I would have thought that would be even more obvious.

    For many years CIE renamed Charleville station Rathluric and when the locals kicked up somebody got new station signs made up with an 'English' translation of Rathluric to An Rath! I don't know what it's called now on the signs but in the timetable it's Charleville these days. CIE/IE still call Bagenalstown - Muine Bheag, until recently they persisted with calling Edgeworthstown - Mostrim but that is now over. Until relatively recent times older railway men called Port Laoise - Maryborough.

    On checking I see this in Wikipedia regarding Charleville:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleville,_County_Cork

    Charleville was founded in 1661 by Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery. The name 'Charleville' is French for 'Charles Town'. Roger Boyle had been a supporter of Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil War. However, when King Charles II was restored in 1660, he had to prove his loyalty to the crown. He did this by naming Charleville after the English king. The Irish version 'Ráth Luirc' was given official recognition in the 1920s by the Irish Free State. However, this name is rarely used;[citation needed] and perhaps with good reason, for it was the name 'An Ráth', and not 'Ráth Luirc', that was used by the area's native Irish speakers historically. ´An Ráth´ in English means ´The Fort´ and the sports teams in the locality have as their crest a fort. Irish Railways (CIE) ceased to use the name Ráth Luirc as the official name of the station in the 1980s; although it is still retained (as at all Irish railway stations) in the bi-lingual station signs.


  • #5
    Simarillion
    Registered Users Posts: 123 ✭✭Simarillion


    I'm going to go out on a limb and say it has something to do with the people living in the locality and also the name itself.

    My great-grandfather was a founding member of the Gaelic League, and a good friend of Hyde and Yeats, and as with many of the founding members, they had a rather idealistic view of the mystical Celtic Ireland they wanted to create. My grandmother (who along with her siblings has not a word of Irish! ) told me that when her father travelled around the country, very few people in Ireland spoke or understood Irish outside of the Gaeltacht areas, and the educated nationalists in Dublin. It wasn't the common language for any form of communication. I've been told that even in the GAA, everything was done through English until the 1960's when a bout of nationalism changed everything to Irish again (see the names of the Presidents of the GAA in Croke Park change from English to Irish)

    My point is that for people who lived in Bagnelstown and Charleville, the names Rath Luirc and Muine Bheag meant bugger all ! They were run of the mill people, who weren't versed in the language, so they could understand Bagnelstown and why it was called that but not who or what Rath Luirc meant.

    My second point is back to the people who lived there. Both Kingstown and Queenstown had large populations of unionist residents or British military or both. This was relatively well known, and I imagine it was an attempt at a jibe at the residents to make them live in an area that they could neither pronounce nor relate too. This and the names were distinctly related to the Crown.

    Just my theory......:)


  • #6
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    Very good points Simarillion and it puts me in mind of a story my grandmother used to tell me about an old lady (Unionist) who persisted with the use of Kingstown long after the name change. On one occasion she was heading home from town on the tram and tried to buy a ticket to Kingstown but the conductor was having none of it and wouldn't sell her a ticket until she used the correct name. However, she was made of stern stuff and eventually won out by asking for a thrupenny fare instead of specifying her destination. :D


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  • #7
    mathepac
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,991 ✭✭✭mathepac


    Snickers Man wrote: »
    ... But to continue with my question: why did some place names that were Gaelicized after independence catch on and others didn't? ...
    The process you describe is arse-about-face.

    The original Irish names for these places were Anglicised, and in a lot of cases (not all and largely dependent on local populations / politicians) they simply reverted to their Irish names after Independence.

    Ardent Anglos argue that these places had no names or didn't exist until through their munificence and industry they created them. A prime example cited is the city of Derry which according to Unionist historians was nothing before the Londoners arrived, invested vast sums, made it and named it Londonderry . All rubbish of course as Doire Colmcille, the original name for the place, existed for close to a millenium before the planters arrived.

    By claiming that the planters created and named Londonderry, they give the lie to their own assertions and ignore the practice of invaders at the time of naming conquered places with a "New" preceding a town, county or city in their own native country e.g. New York, New Hampshire, New Bedford, New England, etc. Hell, we even named our bit of Canada as New Ireland (Nova Scotia) before Columbus got there after getting lost sailing from Mass in Galway's St. Nicholas' Church and Portugal.

    So Gaelacization is IMHO an ugly word for a process that never happened.


  • #8
    Simarillion
    Registered Users Posts: 123 ✭✭Simarillion


    But many of the places named never existed before they were built by local landowners.
    Bagnelstown, Cootehill, Charleville, Charlestown the list goes on. Even towns like Adare, Birr and Westport were almost entirely constructed where nothing was before them.

    There is obviously a long list of areas that were anglicized from their already Gaelic names, but certainly there was a backlash process of gaelicisation following independence.


  • #9
    mathepac
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,991 ✭✭✭mathepac


    Simarillion wrote: »
    But many of the places named never existed before they were built by local landowners...
    They were not named by the builders but renamed in the same way that housing estates / developments are named today (after the builder, his favourite bar in Torremolinos, his dog, mother-in-law, a TV series, race-track, etc).

    In Ireland for centuries the convention had been to name even parts of individual fields as well as the fields themselves in farms, let alone the county, parish, barony, village, townsland, etc. detail associated with (pre post office ) addresses.


  • #10
    Rabble Rabble
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,367 ✭✭✭Rabble Rabble


    Charleville is less of an issue, because both Charles i & II were more or less sympathetic to Catholicism - the the rest of the stuff that stuck is (anti)royalty related.


  • #11
    who the fug
    Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    Cobh was only called Queenstown in 1849, (near enough the same with Kingstown) so it was only a short space of time and never really would have caught on.


    (Ask any Dubliner over 70 how to get to Cork by train and he will send you to Kingsbridge)


    So neither of them are a good example to support the opening post


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  • #12
    gbee
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,388 ✭✭✭gbee


    Snickers Man wrote: »
    But then why does Charleville retain its old name? I would have thought that would be even more obvious.

    A fast story, approx 100 years ago a fish monger in Cork set up business in the English Market, his stall was O'Connell and he did well.

    However, some took objection and some objected to his monopoly. So the enterprising entrepreneur opened a new stall alongside his own and called it O'Conaill Iasc and both thrived.

    He reckons people just did not make the association .....


  • #13
    MarchDub
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,731 ✭✭✭MarchDub


    mathepac wrote: »
    The process you describe is arse-about-face.

    The original Irish names for these places were Anglicised, and in a lot of cases (not all and largely dependent on local populations / politicians) they simply reverted to their Irish names after Independence.

    Ardent Anglos argue that these places had no names or didn't exist until through their munificence and industry they created them. A prime example cited is the city of Derry which according to Unionist historians was nothing before the Londoners arrived, invested vast sums, made it and named it Londonderry . All rubbish of course as Doire Colmcille, the original name for the place, existed for close to a millenium before the planters arrived.

    By claiming that the planters created and named Londonderry, they give the lie to their own assertions and ignore the practice of invaders at the time of naming conquered places with a "New" preceding a town, county or city in their own native country e.g. New York, New Hampshire, New Bedford, New England, etc. Hell, we even named our bit of Canada as New Ireland (Nova Scotia) before Columbus got there after getting lost sailing from Mass in Galway's St. Nicholas' Church and Portugal.

    So Gaelacization is IMHO an ugly word for a process that never happened.

    Very well stated - You describe the process very well.

    The same process was repeated throughout the Empire with the Indias now renaming Bombay to Mumbai. This is all part of an Indian process to reclaim the region from the various colonial administrations.

    Another example that is so striking is a mountain in Kenya which had been re-named by the colonials as "White Man's Mountain" [how about that for a lie?] has been changed back to its original African name. I don't recall the African name - Obama writes about this and other regional name changing in Kenya in his memoir.


  • #14
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Coming back to Ireland a few years back and trying to get to Kells and all road signposts led to Ceanannas.

    It was a bit odd really.

    Its the Book of Kells not the Book of Ceanannas.


  • #15
    mathepac
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,991 ✭✭✭mathepac


    CDfm wrote: »
    ... Its the Book of Kells not the Book of Ceanannas.
    To some. To others it could be the Book of Columba or even Leabhar Cheanannais, but you've highlighted an issue I have with the "Tá sé mahogany gas-pipe" brigade in local authorities.

    I'm not sure who chartered them but there are changes being implemented on road signs both to the Irish place-names and to the established spellings of the Anglicised versions of the names (e.g. there are two new inconsistent spellings on different signs for Toomevara, Co Tipperary)

    I don't understand the need for any of it or what's triggering the inconsistencies and can only surmise that some FFer somewhere has a road-sign company.


  • #16
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    My mother is from West Cork, Ballavourna (Baile Bhuirne).Thats what the locals I knew all called it. When I was growing up I found it odd that maps and RTE used to call it Ballyvourney. In the 70's they still had wind up phones and an operator had to put you thru to the Ballamakeera exchange.

    Some places are Irish but others have Irish forced on them. Its when a placename is not in popular use or identifiable that I find it odd. Nobody uses Baile Atha Cliath except in Irish.

    So it is very surreal in an Alice in Wonderland way how it happens with very little respect for the popular usage as in Kells and Dingle.

    There is no common sense to it. I rather like the idea that we should blame CIE for it.


  • #17
    who the fug
    Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    CDfm wrote: »
    My mother is from West Cork, Ballavourna (Baile Bhuirne).Thats what the locals I knew all called it. When I was growing up I found it odd that maps and RTE used to call it Ballyvourney. In the 70's they still had wind up phones and an operator had to put you thru to the Ballamakeera exchange.

    .

    Haven grown up in West Cork, (during the seventies and early eighties) we would have always called it Ballyvourney, and calling it Ballavourna would just enforce our suspicion that they be Cork but happier in Kerry :D

    Nothing wrong with wind up phones, party lines before the rest of the country


  • #18
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Did you just call my Mum a Ciarraíoch :eek:


  • #19
    who the fug
    Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    CDfm wrote: »
    Did you just call my Mum a Ciarraíoch :eek:

    Try living in West Cork with your Ma being a Ciarraíoch;)


  • #20
    deise go deo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,677 ✭✭✭deise go deo


    who the fug wrote: »
    Try living in West Cork with your Ma being a Ciarraíoch;)

    Aithníonn ciaraíoch ciaraíoch eile?:D


  • #21
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    deise go deo wrote: »
    Aithníonn ciaraíoch ciaraíoch eile?:D

    So true, so true :D


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  • #22
    who the fug
    Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    deise go deo wrote: »
    Aithníonn ciaraíoch ciaraíoch eile?:D

    Sorry Ni Higham (all I remember from 12 years, sorry if the spelling is wrong)


  • #23
    deise go deo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,677 ✭✭✭deise go deo


    who the fug wrote: »
    Sorry Ni Higham (all I remember from 12 years, sorry if the spelling is wrong)

    "Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile."
    Translation: "One beetle recognises another."
    Meaning: It takes one to know one; Like sees like.

    I put ciarraíoch in instead of ciaróg;)


  • #24
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    deise go deo wrote: »
    "Aithníonn ciaróg ciaróg eile."
    Translation: "One beetle recognises another."
    Meaning: It takes one to know one; Like sees like.

    I put ciarraíoch in instead of ciaróg;)

    And since he thaked you.

    Who the Fug's a Kerryman :pac:


  • #25
    who the fug
    Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    CDfm wrote: »
    And since he thaked you.

    Who the Fug's a Kerryman :pac:

    Mother from Cork you from Dublin, are you Bertie in disguise :D

    All west Cork people are very polite hence the thanks


  • #26
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    who the fug wrote: »
    Mother from Cork you from Dublin, are you Bertie in disguise :D

    All west Cork people are very polite hence the thanks

    I am from Cork, and, no true west cork man would ever accept being called a ciaraíoch.

    The correct polite Coolea Gaeltacht reply to that would be "[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]D'anam don diabhal"!!![/FONT]


  • #27
    who the fug
    Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    CDfm wrote: »
    The correct polite Coolea Gaeltacht reply to that would be "[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]D'anam don diabhal"!!![/FONT]


    A very Kerry turn of phrase, must have been said about twice a day to me growing up, followed by knocking the taspie out of me (cue exit stage left at a rapid rate of knots)


  • #28
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    who the fug wrote: »
    A very Kerry turn of phrase, must have been said about twice a day to me growing up, followed by knocking the taspie out of me (cue exit stage left at a rapid rate of knots)

    :D LOL

    Gheobhaidh me an bhanaltra duit


  • #29
    who the fug
    Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    CDfm wrote: »
    :D LOL

    Gheobhaidh me an bhanaltra duit

    Que?


  • #30
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    who the fug wrote: »
    Que?

    I will get the nurse for you :D


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  • #31
    who the fug
    Registered Users Posts: 4,041 ✭✭✭who the fug


    CDfm wrote: »
    I will get the nurse for you :D

    Cheers, but it be a bit late now


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