Dingle name change to go to a people’s vote, rules council

THE people of the Dingle area are to be asked to vote on a controversial decision to change the official name of the town to An Daingean.

Kerry County Council yesterday decided to prepare for a plebiscite, following intense opposition in the area to a decision by Gaeltacht Minister Eamon O Cuiv to have the Irish version only, An Daingean, on road signs outside the Gaeltacht.

It also emerged yesterday that if the name Dingle continued to be used,

Dingle could find itself excluded from the Gaeltacht in a boundaries review due to take place in 2007.

Such exclusion would mean the loss of valuable state grants which people in Dingle, as a Gaeltacht town, can currently avail of.

Four different motions were before yesterday's council meeting, in Tralee, proposing that An Daingean be changed back to Dingle, that the council organise a plebiscite and that both the Irish and English versions of the name be used on signs.

It was eventually decided to ask the county solicitor to start a process that would enable the people of the area to have their say in a plebiscite. A report on the issue is to be presented to the September council meeting.

The plebiscite will decide if the name should be in Irish only, or bilingual: Daingean Uí Chuis Dingle. Under the Local Government Act 1946, the council can then ask the Government to comply with the people's wishes.

Fine Gael councillor Pat McCarthy proposed the restoration of bilingual signage and claimed the minister had shown no regard for the democratic rights of the people. "I can't understand why he (the minister) went down this road," Mr McCarthy said.

Dingle Fine Gael councillor Seamus Cosai Fitzgerald, who proposed a plebiscite for Dingle town and its environs, said the minister had hoodwinked the people and "didn't outline in detail what he was up to."

He said the minister was making a big mistake in "drumming" the decision down people's throats. Also, he went on, the minister did not get the Irish placename right it was not An Daingean, but Daingean Uí Chuis.

Mr Fitzgerald said Dingle was an internationally-recognised brand name and tourism was now the peninsula's main industry, involving more than 50% of the population.

Mayor Toireasa Ferris, Sinn Féin, said there could be serious implications for funding in the Dingle area from 2007 onwards if the town was excluded from the Gaeltacht and continued to be known as Dingle.

She also felt surrounding Gaeltacht areas should be considered, as they could suffer as well. She called for a joint consultation process between the council and Udarás na Gaeltachta on the holding of a plebiscite that should include all of the west Kerry Gaeltacht.