The Government has moved to give legal recognition to thousands of placenames in Irish for the first time, more than six decades after the Constitution recognised Irish as the primary national language. Arthur Beesley, Political Reporter, reports.
Placenames in English will no longer have exclusive recognition in Irish law in a legal change that recalls the debate about the replacement of Irish placenames with English forms in the Brian Friel play, Translations.
Almost 200 years after British Ordnance Survey embarked on the formal process of changing Irish placenames into English, the Minister for Gaeltacht Affairs, Mr Ó Caoimh, has moved in the opposite direction.
Mr Ó Caoimh gave legal standing in recent days to the Irish versions of placenames in six counties, highlighting a wealth of linguistic nuance that reflects the replacement of Irish with English when British rule prevailed.
As with all languages, a myriad of consistencies and inconsistencies emerge in the translations for Counties Louth, Offaly, Monaghan, Limerick, Kilkenny and Waterford. In Co Louth, for example, townlands such as Greenbatter and Yellowbatter are seen to come from An Bóthar Glas and An Bóthar Buí.
Batter in these two names comes from bóthar, meaning road. The colours are direct translations.
However, the townland Navan in Co Louth, is translated as Nabhainn. By contrast, the town of Navan in Co Meath is generally known in Irish as An Uaimh.
Mr Ó Caoimh said that placenames in Irish had standing "as if official" but no actual recognition in law. "The effect is that for the first time we have actual official Irish language versions of all these names," he said.
It is believed that work to formally translate placenames in the remaining 20 counties in the State could take between seven and 10 years.
The formal translation of the placenames in the six counties of Northern Ireland is not on the immediate agenda.
However, the Minister said he would designate placenames in all Gaeltacht areas by the end of the year. The development will also mean that voters in the Gaeltacht will have their addresses printed in Irish on their polling cards for the first time. According to Mr Dónall Mac Giolla Easpaig, the chief placenames officer at the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, the translation work was undertaken between 1978 and 1996.