well done kilkenny

Corporation members to name private estates

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By Sean Keane in Kilkenny
Kilkenny Corporation is to enact by-laws that will give elected members the power to name new private housing estates.

In what is being described as an attempt to stamp out “cheap attempts at grandeur”, the Corporation will take the power to name estates away from developers.

This follows the construction of estates in the city with names such as Richview, Marble Crest, Holly Bank and Linton Hall.

Alderman Michael Lanigan wants to stamp out “meaningless and vulgar place names”.

He suggests new estates should be named after historical figures and gives the example of places named after local novelist John Banin. Names such as Tiffany Downs in Cork and others in Kilkenny were cheap attempts at grandeur, he said.

“We have more than enough opportunities from the history of Kilkenny to reflect our heritage and our past in naming new estates,” Ald Lanigan said.

Giving places names “beyond their station” would embarrass people in the future, he concluded.

Kilkenny Corporation’s move was welcomed by a spokesman for the Department of the Environment and Local Government who said his department had campaigned against what he termed “the Tuscany Downs syndrome”.

“We have been advising for some time that developers and local authorities involved in naming places take names from local heritage, rather than names from far away places that have no relationship to the place,” he said.