Dingle

Presentation

The city is established on a natural port leant with the Slievanea mount on the Péninsule of Dingle, which is stretched in the south of the river Shannon and in the north of the “Ring off Kerry”. It counted: 1828 inhabitants in 2002, and: 1775 inhabitants in 2006, to which are added: 6904 inhabitants of the rural area. Dingle is located in sector Gaeltacht (area where Irish is spoken) and saw primarily tourism, fishing and agriculture. It counts many pubs, coffees and restaurants where it is possible to listen to Irish music. Since many years, a dolphin baptized Fungie constitutes a tourist attraction: having elected residence in bay, it accompanies the boats by visitors.

The current presbytery marks the site of the house of the man who tried to save the queen of France, Marie-Antoinette. Lord Rice, native of Dingle and officer of the Irish Brigade, indeed projected in 1792 to make escape the queen from France; preparations were fine loans but when she learned that she would be alone to escape, thus giving up king and children, she would have refused to leave, preferring to face her destiny.

Name change

In 2005, Éamon Ó Cuív, Minister for the Businesses of Gaeltacht, announces that the anglicized version of the places of Gaeltacht (of which Dingle forms part) will not appear any more on the control panels and will be replaced by the Irish names. The name of Dingle is thus removed at the beginning of 2005 with the profit of An Daingean (overriding the previous versions of Daingean Uí Chúis or An Daingean Mór ).

In this case precise, change is subjected to controversy, city living for broad share of tourism and residents fearing that the tourists are disorientated by the dispartition of the name of Dingle and its change in An Daingean , which resembles Daingean, in the Comté of Offaly.

The partisans of the minister reject this argument by stressing that there exist several cities in Ireland which have nearby names, even perfectly identical, such as Blackrock (which one finds in the counties of Louth, Cork, Galway and Dublin). The minister adds that a return to the english language version would be possible on the condition of withdrawing in Dingle its statute of city of Gaeltacht, and financial aids which go with.

The council of the county of Kerry organizes in October 2006 a referendum on the subject, the choice of a bilingual version arrives largely at the head. The minister affirms that it does not have the capacity to act according to the result of a referendum but which it is close examining a request of the council of the county which lies within the scope of the law.

Twinnings

Sources

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