No further on over Enniscrone name plebiscite
THERE’S still no sign of a plebiscite being held in Enniscrone over the official changing of the village’s name from Inishcrone.
The matter was raised in the Dáil last week by Deputy Frank Feighan who was informed however that the matter was still with the Department of Heritage Arts and Gaeltacht.
Minister of State for Local Government John Paul Phelan told Deputy Feighan that the new Local Government Act drew up the criteria under which a plebiscite could be held.
“We held plebiscites on the issue of directly elected mayors for example under this legislation in three local authority areas and this legislation would also work in the case of a naming situation like Enniscrone.
“However, in this particular situation there is a conflict between legislation in that the official languages legislation falls under the Department of Heritage, Arts and Gaeltacht and we are still awaiting an updated response from them as to where they stand with the review of that legislation in ensuring that the plebiscite you mention can be put to the people of Enniscrone as to how the they want the spelling of Enniscrone to be into the future.”
Deputy Feighan said: “It’s a huge issue locally and it is an issue which is affecting tourism in the area.
“The people of west Sligo cannot understand why this has not happened as of yet”.
“It is not just Enniscrone, there are many towns and villages across this country that are in similar confusing situations and the battle between the two departments about place names in Irish and English needs to be resolved.”
“We have this Irish spelling of Enniscrone, which 95% of the people from the area don’t actually recognise.
“They want to change this and have held large public meetings about this.
“We had a meeting of over 700 or 800 people.
“We met you on this issue and you know they want to change this place name to Enniscrone, and the people from the area want to be able to have a plebiscite to have this officially recognised,” said Deputy Feighan.