Logainm.ie is a database of the official Irish and English placenames for more than 100,000 towns, villages, parishes, islands, rivers etc around the country. The same team from Fiontar in DCU who developed Focal.ie have been working on Logainm.ie for the past 18 months.
Looking around the site you’ll see the scans of archived index cards with placenames research going back decades, and there are sound files of the correct pronunciation of more than 3,000 placenames in Galway, Donegal and Waterford available so far. Anyone with an interest in heritage, culture, history or geography should find it interesting. There are versions in Irish and English too.
For the second phase of the project they’ll be adding an interactive map interface, sound files for all place names, teaching resources for primary, secondary & 3rd level & other features.
Yeah, but did you see the ad on telly?
Magairlí an Deabhail translated as the Devil’s Mother.
Eh, no Ted.
Magairlí an Deabhail means the Devil’s Bollocks.
I remember hearing a worker with Comhluadar speaking at a public meeting about the Official Languages Act (OLA) in the SDCC HQ in Tallaght a few years ago. He said that he thinks that most (all?) Irish people have an inferiority complex when it comes to our placnames.
Our Irish placenames are the original placenames- they actually mean something. Our placenames in Béarla are merely anglicazations of the original Irish names.
If an inferiority complex wasn’t common our road signs would have comhstádas- equal status- between both Irish and English. Currently according to the Road Signage Guidelines it is stipulated that the Irish has to be written in smaller font and in italics.
If the Govt. don’t sort this matter out by addressing it soon e.g. as part of the Plean 2028 to be announced by the end of the year then I am going to give up playing my (if paltry) part promoting it. You can’t really get far if the Govt. is merely content on tokenism.
Quite agree, Darren
Is it not a wonder that Minister O Cuibh would not direct more of his energy in that direction, and leave Dinge to the Kerrymen.
How many ex-brit colonies (apart from USA and Pacific Islands) have english road signs in place of their native placenames ? Even then we have names like Spokane, Miami and Dakota to recall native peoples.
Soon enough, UK roads signs may read in Hindu or Urdu.
Slan is beannacht.