Irish village gets its harlot back

[janbo1960]

A village in south-west Ireland has won a fresh round in a battle to change its name in the Irish language back to Fort of the Harlot.

For centuries, the village known as Doon in English had been known in Irish as Dun Bleisce, or Fort of the Harlot, but the name was changed in 2003 when the Government ordered a simpler An Dun, or The Fort.

The unpopular move led to 1,000 locals signing a petition to have 'harlot' added back to the name. They were backed by local politicians and a Limerick County Council motion of support.

Under pressure, Eamon O Cuiv, the Irish Government Minister responsible for the Irish language, asked the official commission that rules on Gaelic names to give a ruling.

In a statement Sunday, he said the Placenames Commission had confirmed its view that "An Dun" was the appropriate Irish version but that the alternative "Dun Bleisce" also had an "attested historical basis".

With both options available, Mr O Cuiv said he had published a draft order to change the village's name back, pending final public approval.

"Assuming no strong objections are received, I propose to make the order in four weeks' time," he said.

Local councillor Mary Jackman said she was absolutely delighted.

"I am really thrilled. Signposts had always been Dun Bleisce and I think it was bureaucracy or a little glitch in interpretation that changed it," she told AFP.

'Woman of substance'

Ms Jackman said the literal translation of the word may be 'harlot' but the woman who the village was named after in ancient times may not have been a harlot in the sense of the term today.

"I believe that blesc was not a derogatory term in those days. It would have meant she was a strong or powerful woman in the locality. No one knows anything about her really," she said.

According to historical evidence provided by the commission, the first mention of the name Dun Bleisce was in 774.

"She would have been a woman of substance. There was a strong sense of feminism in rural areas in those days," Ms Jackman said.

"The name was the Dun of Bleisce, or the dwelling or fort of this lassie, and she is quite entitled to have her pedigree embedded in the place name.

"Nobody has any problem locally with the word. It is the old authentic name."

Gaelic was Ireland's predominant language but was overwhelmed after British colonisation when English became the sole language of government.

Mr O Cuiv has been making thousands of orders reversing mainly anglicised place names.

However, he is also at loggerheads with another Irish town, Dingle, as a result of its name being changed to the Gaelic "Daingean".

One of Ireland's most famous tourist destinations, Dingle, on Ireland's west coast, voted in a plebiscite overwhelmingly against the government edict and demanded another change to "Dingle Daingean Ui Chuis", mixing both English and Irish.

Mr O Cuiv says the law does not allow that. Dingle is in a gaeltacht area - a district where Irish is specially promoted to try to save the language from extinction