http://www.gaelport.com/index.php?page=clippings&id=1950&viewby=date

The story is a bit misleading.
Road signs (green/white ones) will still only say An Daingean, as is the legal position.

NEW tourism signs (brown) are to be erected at key places pointing to Corca Dhuibhne/Dingle.

Gaeilge on roadsigns - something that gets my goat.

Both languages on signs should be of equal size, like in Scotland and Wales.

Bunreacht na hÉireann states that Irish is the first official language, but our road/street signs don't reflect this. Lowercase italics reinforeces the attitude that 'Gaelic' is less important than English in modern Ireland. Sounds petty but it's true.

Irish needs to be made more visible on the streets, but sadly I've noticed it disappearing over the years. For example, Dublin Bus doesn't display Irish placenames on a lot of its new fleet. The buses acutally helped me learn a lot of Irish in the past, but now it's disappearing.

Dublin City Council are also "upgrading" all of the lovely old streets signs
around the city with those blue cheap ones. A disgrace.

I notice that many of the "An Daingean" directional signs have now been painted out with brown paint. I presume its being done by the loonies who are unhappy with the official response that Aonghus refers to.

I have already met some very confused vistors in the town, which begs the question: what exactly are these morons out to achieve? (the vandals; not the visitors)

Take Dingle town out of the Gaeltacht so their businesses no longer recieve Gaeltacht Funding Assistance. The majority of them have no interest in perserving the language anyway.

Does Dingle town really deserve to be part of the Gaeltacht?

It is important as a service centre for the Gaeltacht.
The hospital is there. The county council is there. The secondary school is there.

Take it out, and all those services in Irish get lost.

That is what has caused other Gaeltachts to fail or weken irreversibly - Uibh Rathach, say.

Tuigim.

But the last time I was there, it seemed that the majority of the business owners i mBaile an Daingean didn't have a word of Irish. eg. I could not do a transaction in Irish in many of the shops; and I do assume that these businesses are subsidised by Gaeltacht Funding Assistance - our tax money.

If they can't provide a service in Gaeilge, why exactly are they being subsidised? What makes them different to the shop owners up the road in Tralee?

Ta an ceart ag Aonghus. It probably would be a bad idea to take Dingle out of the Gaeltacht for the reasons he mentioned.

Now about tourists. Any halfway intelligent tourist has heard about the name change to Daingean and so they would not have a problem with it. OK maybe that is too harsh but you would think that in the course of researching the destination people would hear about it.

Beir bua agus beannacht

Ceolmhar,

I have been able to do business with almost any Irish person in Dingle in Irish.

And I doubt many of the shops get grant assistance, that is not how it works.

http://www.udaras.ie/udaras/cunamh.asp?lang=irl

quote:

Seo a leanas coimriú ar an gcúnamh atá ar fáil do ghnólachtaí nua agus do ghnólachtaí atá ag fairsingiú. Tá maoiniú curtha ar fáil don Údarás faoin bPlean Forbartha Náisiúnta.

Besides, something people often choose to ignore is that many of these schemes are identical to ones outside the Gaeltacht run by County Enterprise boards, i.e. the money would be spent anyway.

"Does Dingle town really deserve to be part of the Gaeltacht?"

Yes it does, and it is vital that it remains so for the very reasons given by Aonghus. And it is very easy to do business as gaeilge practically everywhere in the town. But you must make it known that you speak Irish or you will be addressed in English.

There were more than a few native speakers (language activists indeed) who backed the Dingle retention campaign.