Cassidy Clan" Below is a copy of a letter I sent to the Fermanagh Gold list,
about the contemplated change of townland names for mundane addresses,
proposed by the Fermanagh District Council. PLEASE voice your opinion to the
FDC to tell them to keep the historic names. Imagine! We could lose the
name of Ballycassidy!
Janet
Hi List,
Perhaps you've been reading the posts from Seamas and Phillip about the
change in NI from historic townland names to "modern" meaningless road
addresses. I for one, HATE to see this happen. Fermanagh has so far resisted
the trend, and kept the historic townland names, but according to Seamas's
post, the Fermanagh District Council is still considering changing the
addresses, which will do away with the historic names. These old names were
the names that our ancestors called home.
There is something wonderful about knowing the name of the townland where
your ancestors walked and farmed, and knowing the name is still there, and
that you can find the place today. Even if the house is gone, you can still
go to Drumgormly or Aghakieran or Aughakillymaude. Don't you want it to stay
that way??
If you don't want them to do away with the townland names, write to the
Fermanagh District Council and tell them how you feel. There are a lot of
people on this list. That's a lot of potential tourists to visit Fermanagh,
the land of our ancestors. Tell them you want the addresses to keep the
historic townland names. Voice your opinion!
Please send your emails protesting the names change to
rodneyconnor(a)fermanagh.gov.uk and/or
fdc(a)fermanagh.gov.uk
Let's speak up for our ancestor's home places.
Janet C-S
In a message dated 3/5/02 12:22:28 PM, smccanny(a)hotmail.com writes:
<< One could write to any of the councillors, since unlike the paid officials
they are subject to the whims of public opinion and the power of democracy,
but also to Rodney Connor, chief executive of Fermanagh District Council,
and also Dessie Reid, Director of Building Control, who was the person who
spoke on possible reasons for making a change at our seminar. All care of
Townhall, Townhall Street, Enniskillen. >>
We had an excellent day-long seminar at Tempo Historical Society's premises
at Dooneen on 9th February. Among those taking part were John Cunningham
(Belleek), Jack Johnston (Clogher), Pat McDonnell(Dromore), Bryan Gallagher
(Enniskillen ex. Derrylin), John Dooher (Strabane) etc. and our title was
'celebrating our townland heritage'.
We heard papers on various aspects of this topic; Pat McKay of the
Placenames Project at Queen's University highlighted the antiquity of the
names, noting that many of the parishes are called after early Christian
monastic sites, with thoses bearing the name of the local saint, such as
Killesher, Kinawley, dating from those times, but many of them being even
older since the monastery or church took the name that was already in use
for the place it was built, so a name like Devenish (Ox island)could be said
to be preChristian.
Now that's the good news...
The bad news is that Fermanagh District Council is currently engaged in a
consultation process seeking ways of making our address system more
acceptable to modern computer systems.
Apparently people applying for mobile phones, credit cards, and other things
where a credit worthiness check is run are having difficulty because
computer data-bases of addresses held by English companies expect everyone
to live on a road and to have a house number.
Now I don't have a mobile phone or a credit card etc. so I can't speak about
them, nor indeed have I lived in a rural area where my address was a
townland rather than a named road.
About twenty years ago in five of the six counties of Northern Ireland a new
system of rural addresses was introduced wherby the townlands were abandoned
and every road was given a name, so that where previously your address might
have been Gillyholme, Monea, Co. Fermanagh, it would then read 147,
Derrygonnelly Road, Enniskillen. Which apart from doing away with the old
name gives the impression that you are now living in Enniskillen, rather
than seven or eight miles out of town, and probably making it harder, rather
than easier for a visitor to find your house.
The logical extension to this form of numbering is that eventually the main
road from Enniskillen to Belfast would have the one set of numbers, and that
someone living in Clogher would then be living at 2897, Enniskillen Road,
Belfast if they lived on the south side of the road, so that the post van
coming out of Belfast would deliver mail to the houses on his left (we drive
on the left in Ireland), or at 765, Belfast Road, Enniskillen if they lived
on the otehr side of the road which would be serviced by a van heading out
from Enniskillen.
Meantime the assembly in Belfast has voted for the restoration of townland
name use in principle, but has not allocated any money for the job.
Also the post-office is compiling a new address data-base for commercial use
which does use townland names in those areas where previously road-names had
been introduced. The problem with this apparently is that quite a few houses
are now allocated to the wrong townland because the new townland address is
based on the road address, and as anyone who knows rural Ireland can tell
you, a house in the country could be half a mile up a lane, a lane which
starts in one townland, but ends in another. (The road addresses were based
on where the lane joined the road, rather than where the house was.)
So the whole thing is a bit of a mess. It should have been left the way it
was, and if the officials in Fermanagh District Council have any sense, they
too will leave things the way they are too.
One message, incidentally, which did come across from our seminar was that
one of the arguments which was most likely to influence the council to
retain the townland system was the use of townlands in heritage tourism -
i.e. since it is people like the subscribers to FermanaghGold who are most
likely to want to visit Fermanagh, and they need to be able to find the
revelant townland, or they'll simply get as far as the Public Record Office
in Belfast and not see any point in coming here to visit the ancestral
homestead, once known as Aughakillymaude soon to be called 847, Cavan road,
Enniskillen.>>