ABSTRACT
In Ireland place names on ofcial road signs appear in two forms, in the English language version which is the name most commonly used, and in the place name’s original form in the Irish language. In Northern Ireland place names ofcially appear on road signs in English only. However, there are places in Northern Ireland where Irish versions of these names have been included in street signs, where local place names feature on roadside plaques and where place names in Ulster Scots are included on local road signs. These presentday patterns of naming reect the long and contentious history of British colonization in Ireland, the signicance of reinstating Irish place names after independence in Ireland and the contemporary politics of culture, identity and belonging in Northern Ireland. Ofcial policies and popular approaches to place names are bound up with wider debates and conicts about what counts as a collective past, the histories of settlement that are reected in place names, the politicization of language, desires for cultural authenticity and arguments for cultural pluralism. In societies whose topomyies have been shaped by the power-laden relationships between different ethnic and linguistic groups, debates about place names are entangled with all the most difcult questions of cultural identity, ownership, rights and recognition; decisions about which place names are most appropriate or the recognition of different language versions reect particular approaches to questions of cultural purity, cultural change and cultural diversity in society more widely.
