Mapping Hacks

Reality is what the maps tell us, whether or not that reflects reality on the ground.
In Ireland it is now illegal for the Ordnance Survey to use
English names on maps of certain areas.

The question of what a place should be called brings forth issues of control and domination, freedom and self determination, throwing off the cloak of foreign rule in favor of the real place.

Names have the power to create reality.

Another impact of the law is that, for many places, the government has settled eons of argument about what the locality’s real Gaelic name should be. Some villages and smaller rural entities called “townlands” have had rival spellings and even totally competing names.

The town of Mountcharles in northwest County Donegal, for instance, has often been known in its straight Gaelic translation “Moin Searlas,” but the government-approved list rejects this in favor of a more medieval name “Tamhnach an tSalainn,” pronounced as “townuck awn tallan” and meaning “hill of salt.”

Has the government truly ’settled eons of argument’ about what the real name should be? Or has it just endorsed one set of geographic signifiers, putting a thumb on the scale as it weighs in with an ‘official’ preference?

Mountcharles, Moin Searlas, Tamhnach an tSalainn, or hill of salt…words have power.

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