Friday, April 25, 2008

The Whore is Back

For centuries, the village in County Limerick, known as Doon in English, had been known in Gaelic as Dun Bleisce, or Fort of the Harlot, but the name was changed in 2003.
The village's Gaelic name was changed to An Dun, or The Fort in Gaelic, on the advice of the country's Placenames Commission, the official arbiter of names in Irish.
The unpopular move resulted in about 1,000 locals signing a petition seeking to have "harlot" added back to the name. They were backed by local politicians.
The community argued that, although the literal translation of the word is harlot, the woman who the village was named after in ancient times may not have been a harlot in the sense of the term today.
"It could have meant a powerful woman, a feminist," local councillor Mary Jackman told AFP. "Woman were very strong back then -- there is also a goddess in the history of the area."
Welcoming the return of the old name, she added: "People will be delighted. Love of their own comes first, regardless of what she was." (read more...)

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