04/07/09, 11:16:48 EDT

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Where in the world is Dingle ask tourists

irishpost.co.uk

EIGHT out of 10 tourists failed to find their way to Dingle over the St. Patrick's Day weekend. Why? Because they couldn't understand the road signs.

The tourists' confusion stemmed from the fact that the name of the town was changed from Dingle to An Daingean under the Official Languages Act 2003.

The act was introduced to protect and give official status to Irish language place names in Gaeltacht areas.

The legislation was introduced by Eamon O'Cuiv, the Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Minister and has evoked a barrage of criticism.

The survey revealed that 84 per cent of tourists who travelled to Dingle by car over the St. Patrick's Bank Holiday weekend experienced difficulty finding the town.

In the survey conducted in the town, 95 per cent said that they knew the town only as Dingle not as An Daingean.

A further 94 per cent indicated that it would be more beneficial to visitors to the area if the names on the signposts were indicated in English and in Irish.

Dan Sommers - a disgruntled tourist from Iceland - expressed his annoyance at the confusion the Irish namechange was causing.

He said: "We wasted a day trying to find this town after a long journey, it's very annoying not to see signs to this socalled tourist destination."

American visitor Mike Ekberg also ran into problems while visiting the area.

He said: "Our guidebook helped us to clarify that we were in Dingle, without this help we might have been lost.

In Kinsale and Kenmare our inn keeper referred to the town as Dingle."

Last October the result of a local plebiscite voted overwhelmingly in favour of changing the town's name from An Daingean to Dingle Daingean Uí Chúis.

More than a thousand people out of the 1095 who returned their ballot papers voted in favour of the change. Fergus O'Flaherty, chairman of the Dingle Daingean Uí Chúis Name Change lobby group believes the confusion is causing irreparable damage to tourism.

He said: "If you're looking for a place and can't see its name, how can you possibly get there? At the very least, the bilingual name should be on signposts in Killarney, Farranfore and Tralee, the main turning-off points for Dingle."

 Printable Version  | published Apr 11, 2007