Name drop? Dingle bilinguals aren’t happy

THE bitter row over the real name of Dingle in Co. Kerry looks set to reignite because it has been titled ‘An Daingean’ for upcoming local elections.

The moniker An Daingean was voted down by the people in a plebiscite in 2006, but it has re-emerged as the name of the new three-seater local electoral area.

There was widespread shock in west Kerry in 2005/2006 when the name Dingle was officially ditched under the Placenames Orders of the Irish Languages Act, introduced by then minister Éamon Ó Cuív, and replaced with ‘An Daingean’.

The name Dingle was removed from road signs as part of the measure.

Locals from the Kerry Gaeltacht area said they had no idea they were to lose the 700year-old English name of their town.

Dingle had always been referred to in Irish as Daingean Uí Chúis, and Daingean was the name of a town in Co. Offaly, they said. A plebiscite was called and resulted in an overwhelming vote for the double-barrel name Dingle-Daingean Uí Chúis.

The row caused division between the town and the surrounding Gaeltacht region too, with west Kerry residents saying the plebiscite should have included them.

It was 2013 before Dingle reappeared on official maps and road signs.

Now, however a motion comes before Kerry County Council today sounding alarm at the use, once again, of An Daingean – the official name being used by the Government for the municipal electoral area.

Fine Gael councillor Séamus Cosaí Fitzgerald is calling on the council to tell the Minister for Local Government, John Paul Phelan, and the local electoral area boundary committee that ‘the placename An Daingean no longer exists’.

‘It has been replaced and the name should read Dainean Uí Chúis as Gaeilge, and Dingle in English,’ Mr Fitzgerald stated in his motion, adding that the reintroduction of An Daingean is ‘inflaming’ what had been a very divisive row that raged for years.