Placenames fall victim to builders and ill-informed ideologues

DURING the course of several social study conferences in the late 1980s I came to know and admire Eoin 0’Loinsigh of Siochán, Castlegregory, Co Kerry, who, in his 90s by then, was a life-long scholar and a great advocate of the Irish language.

In many discussions about Irish placenames he spoke of the anglicisation and the reverse Irish renaming of various localities around the countryside, drawing attention to the great descriptive beauty that has often been lost through the practice of ill-informed translation by over-zealous Irishians.

In particular, he used his own townland, Dingle, as an example of inadvertent anglicisation of the original name which he held as being, and of, the following — Dún na nGael (Fort of the Gaels/Celts), Dún Geal (Fort of Light, or even perhaps the Bright Fort).