Colonial naming and renaming in Ireland: creating a ‘civilising’ brand
Jonathan CHERRY, Dublin City University, Ireland
One of the crudest tactics employed by colonial powers in the subjugation of a people is the naming and / or renaming of places (Duffy, 2007). From the 17th century onwards, as a result of a series of plantations and land confiscations, a new landowning elite dominated by English and Scottish colonial settlers emerged, who adopted this process in appropriating control over their newly acquired lands. Such erasing, resulting in the loss of indigenous place names alongside the imposition of place names in the colonisers language reflecting their ideologies, values and ‘civilising’ mission were part of a suite of acts that simultaneously sought to disorientate, inspire awe and cultivate loyalty amongst the colonised to new regimes and personnel (Smyth, 2006).
The use by many of these landowning families of their family name / surname as a component of a new place name was a notable phenomena (Cherry et al, 2022). Such names were usually applied to the large country houses and ornate demesne landscapes constructed by these landowning families. This process of intimately connecting their family name to such symbolically significant components of the colonial landscape, through a new place name allowed these families further inscribe their presence in the landscape, creating an image of ‘civility’ and by extension augment their sense of belonging and ‘seatedness’. Using Burke’s Landed Gentry of Ireland and Burke’s Peerage- which details the familial lineages of landowning families and records their ‘seats’ – this paper will detail and analyse the variety of ways this renaming / naming process worked out, which added a distinctive layer of colonial ‘civility’ to Ireland’s toponmyic landscape.
Mots clés : place names|colonial|civility|landowners|Ireland
A105506JC