Irish couple name estate Pogue Muhone after planning row with neighbours

AN Irish couple have told their English neighbours to “kiss my arse” following a row over a housing development.

The developers gave a new estate they built the name of Pogue Muhone Court.

The naming follows a row with neighbours who opposed their planning application.

Proposals to demolish an Edwardian home in Old Bath Road, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and replace it with six new houses were agreed by Cheltenham Borough Council this week despite objections from locals.

The O’Gorman family who own the property have given the new development the name.

Owners Kevin and Susan O’Gorman say the name refers to their family village in Co Tipperary.

Irish folk band The Pogues were founded in 1982 as Pogue Mahone, being the Anglicisation of the Gaelic “póg mo thóin”, meaning “kiss my arse”.

Caroline Donnelly, 48, who has lived next door to the O’Gorman family for 13 years, told the Gloucestershire Echo: “We found out what it meant when my husband and I were on the internet trying to find this village.

“We were shocked. We’ve managed to conduct our campaign in an adult way. But this is just completely rude.”

Nigel McLoughlin is a reader in creative writing at the University of Gloucestershire and an expert linguist.

He told the Echo: “Pogue Muhone is a phonetic rendering of the Irish Gaelic phrase ‘póg mo thóin’, which breaks down as ‘póg’ – imperative form of the Irish verb ‘to kiss’; ‘mo’, a possessive pronoun in the first person singular, and ‘thóin’, a mutated form of the noun ‘tóin’ meaning ‘arse’.”

Cheltenham Borough Council received around 40 complaints about the O’Gormans’ proposals and three previous planning applications were rejected.

Two of these were also dismissed at appeal.

The council said it had not received an official application to name the development Pogue Muhone Court.

A spokesman said while the developers can choose to name the building as they wish, it will not be officially recognised as such because it is not registered.

Helen Thomas, from the council’s built environment team, said: “To register an address, occupants have to apply to the council by completing an application form.

“There hasn’t been a request for a name change.”