The Be in Bearna’s bonnet
To Be or not to Be – that is the question. And now it’s official – it is to Be!
The Department of Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht has confirmed that the official placename for the Gaeltacht village on the western edge of Galway city is Bearna, and not Barna.
A spokesperson has confirmed that the anglicised version of the village, Barna, can no longer be used by Galway County Council when referring to it in official signage.
DAHG said Bearna is the official placename for road signs, as laid down in law.
The banning of the Barna version of the placename has been official policy for almost a decade.
But the debate has reared its head again in recent weeks and months as visitors to and residents of the village noticed new signage erected in Galway with the Irish-only version of Bearna.
Bearna, meaning ‘the gap’, is a breac-Gaeltacht, and so is covered by the controversial legislation that extinguished the English version of the area.
There was huge controversy in Kerry, when the English version of the town Dingle was dropped in favour of Daingean Uí Chúis, the Irish version, and subsequently An Daingean.
Residents of the town held a plebiscite in 2006, which showed the vast majority wanted Dingle and Daingean Uí Chúis reinstated.
In 2013, they eventually got their wish and bilingual signs returned to the Kerry landscape with the name in both English and Irish.
In relation to the dropping of the name Barna from road signs, the Department spokesperson said: “With reference to the depiction of Barna/Bearna on road signs, that particular placename is covered by the Placenames (Ceantair Ghaeltachta) Order of 2004.
“This means, according to the Official Languages Act, 2003, that the English language version of the placename – Barna in this instance – no longer has ‘any force and effect . . . on a road or street sign erected by or on behalf of a local authority from the operative date.”