Uisce street furniture de-Gaeled

The newer ones in Limerick are round and larger than the old Uisce ones, and have a Celtic spiral design on them.

I’ve heard that the larger covers are to allow metering at some stage (hopefully *after* Dublin’s water system has ceased to resemble a colander, so that householders aren’t charged for the water the Corpo wastes by not having undamaged pipes). I don’t know why the decision was made to discard the word “uisce” – except that some jobsworth probably balanced it out: “Culture….Money….which more valuable….Hmmmm” and came down on the side most valuable to him.

I have noticed this change too. The water supply is being upgraded in the south docks/ringsend area at the moment and all of the old ‘uisce’ access points are being dug up and replaced with the larger covers marked ‘water’. The placement of the covers on the pavement is pretty erratic – pity that they could not be place either at the edge of the pavement or right beside the garden/house wall. As it is they are scattered fairly randomly.

In a similar note at the and of mayor street where the new bridge is being built, there is a CIE sign up pointing towards the docklands station. On the sign it says “Docklands Station” and underneath it, it says, “Dugailte stáisiúin”. I wonder do CIE employ a translator or do they simply look these things up in a dictionary badly. I think it’s terribly embarrising for the Irish people

Or on the Red Luas Line, Saint James’ Hospital is called Ospideal SAN Seamus. 😡
The translation is Hospital without James. Its ridiculous that this isn’t given more careful attention.

@reddy wrote:

Or on the Red Luas Line, Saint James’ Hospital is called Ospideal SAN Seamus. 😡
The translation is Hospital without James. Its ridiculous that this isn’t given more careful attention.

I am sorry to here about the Uisce hole covers but I have heard the RPA defend themselves vigorously on the point above, they claim that San for saint, particularly foreign saints, is as well established as Naomh; they claim that they chose San Seamus as the historic norm, Naomh Padraig but San Seamus. They manage to sound very learned and I was impressed they would go to the effort while being incapable of judging the validity of their claim.

@notjim wrote:

I am sorry to here about the Uisce hole covers but I have heard the RPA defend themselves vigorously on the point above, they claim that San for saint, particularly foreign saints, is as well established as Naomh; they claim that they chose San Seamus as the historic norm, Naomh Padraig but San Seamus. They manage to sound very learned and I was impressed they would go to the effort while being incapable of judging the validity of their claim.

Didn’t know that at all. Thats interesting. Never heard it myself but like you said I’m ashamed to say I’m completely incapable of judging the validity of it.

And ‘Sraid San Andreas’ in Dublin City Centre is apparently correct too, despite sounding South American.

Yes i belive San is apropriate. Several streets in Dublin with old Street signs use san and as far as I am aware, it was the de facto translation before the changes made to the Irish language in the 1960’s came into effect.

San on the LUAS was (I believe) decided on as it had to fit in a particular size of display on the trams.

My own favourites are Plás Dúinsméara (Beresford place – berry’s fort??) and Dola Droichead.

it’s correct to use the term “San” when the saint in question is a foreigner. .
“Naomh” is used whe the saint is Irish.
Thats the tradition going back centuries.

As painful as it is to apologise to the RPA I have to eat my words on this one. I was good at Irish too..:confused:

Signage in Irish is pretty dodgy generally. The beautiful, discreet old green road signage is being replaced by rather thick and garish pale blue signs, and sometimes the translation is pretty odd.

Around Kenilworth, some signs adhere to the old “Bóthar Cineilm”, others make it “Páirc Kenilworth”.

Not to mention the fact that Brí Chualainn is now “Bré” (where???) and Nás na Rí is now “An Nás”.

I’m not sure whether the signmakers have no interest in heritage or actively hate Irish. Surely a quick call to the Ombudsman would direct them to the correct names of streets and places? Is there no central ‘caighdeán’ section in the Department of Road Sign Hell that can tell people what places are called before they press the Print button?

The ‘Uisce’ biz is strange. Some signs – seen in Dorset Street or Parnell Street today – are the big round ones but have both ‘Water’ and ‘Uisce’ on them.

Bet you anything those cute little Uisce covers will soon become chic collector’s items, a conversation-piece souvenir of the time when our municipalities cared about our culture.

There was another thread recently that touched on irish language street signs, etc. Someone – dc3, I think, but I should check – posted a link to a very informative web page about the business of translating English names into Irish and the use of Gaelic script in signs.

If I find it, I’ll post the link.

Here we go: https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=6336

And dc3’s link: http://www.photopol.com/signs/sraidbac/streets.html

Do people read the signs in Irish? Yes. Do they matter? Yes.

about 3 months we had to add a small plaque to a building that the client wanted to be in Irish. At its height the arguement (note, not discussion) sucked in no less than 6 people (with appropriate Irish speaking pedigrees)who claimed to know how it should be written. Arbitration was given by a local acknowledged “expert”. All the above will remain nameless, as will the building as several people have since complained about the spelling!!! I think the point I’m trying to make is that no-one seems to know how to write Irish so vive la difference.

with regard to the uisce covers – does anyone make them anymore?? If no-one makes them it’s tricky to buy them.

@Tighin wrote:

Do people read the signs in Irish? Yes. Do they matter? Yes.

I’m not sure anyone was suggesting the answer to either of those questions was ‘No’. :confused:

typical boring subject from missarchi…

is de bhua talmhaigh correct??? what other options would you suggest?? do you guys understand ogham

// ¦¦ / / I / \ – / / I /
Ii I……I \….. I /

My favourite one is one of the old green Dublin signs on a gable wall opposite Donnecarney Church on the Malahide Road – “Bothar Malahide” they couldn’t give a shite back then too obviously

@wearnicehats wrote:

with regard to the uisce covers – does anyone make them anymore?? If no-one makes them it’s tricky to buy them.

Who made them, and designed them, in the first place?

Japan has some really lovely street art in its manhole and uisce covers, by the way – they’re iron, with fabulous coloured relief work in traditional Japanese themes.

We discussed something similar here:
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=6336
Kb