As reported in the Examiner today, the place name Dingle is soon to be but a relic from the past. Kerry County Council is currently in the process of changing the name to its Irish version – An Daingean- and replacing it on signposts around the county. The locals are less than happy and 90% of them voted against the move in a recent referendum. 1, 005 of the 1,222 votes cast were in favour of changing the name to the bilingual version, Dingle Daingean Uí Chúis, but Kerry Council reportedly began changing the name to An Daingean before the referendum results were even declared.
The idea to change the name was first put forward by Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Éamon Ó Cúiv in response to calls from some members of the community that were opposed to having an English name for a Gaeltacht town. A spokesman for the Kerry council told the Examiner that they were obliged to use An Daingean instead of Dingle in accordance with the Official Languages Act 2003.
Locals are now worried that the name change will have a drastic effect on tourism in the area. Many tourists flock to Dingle every year to see Funghi the dolphin who lives in Dingle harbour. A local shopkeeper commented that since the name change on the signposts many tourists have been coming into his shop asking for directions. ‘These tourists are coming into the shop making enquiries every day. They don’t know which way to turn and are very confused. Some of them turn around on the road looking for the road to Dingle, which can be a dangerous manoeuvre’, he said.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect about this name change issue is not that tourism may be affected- after all if you’re going to travel all the way to Dingle in the first place you’ll be damned if you let bad signposts get in your way, despite the irritation- but that the referendum seems to have been ignored. Why carry out a referendum in the first place if the results are to be ignored? I wonder what Funghi would say…
Check out the background behind the name change at: http://www.dinglename.com/dingle.htm
