What’s in a Name?
- Street Name Plaques
The oldest street name plaques in Dungarvan can be
seen at Barrack Lane and Galwey’s Lane.
They are of carved limestone. The
first and oldest is inscribed ‘Castle Street 1727 B.G.M.’ and the other is
inscribed ‘Galwey’s Lane 1740’.
In the 1820s the Duke of Devonshire had new limestone
plaques erected on certain streets. Two
of these survive, one still in situ inscribed ‘New Chapel Lane’ and incorporated
into the gable end of a house in Mountain Villas. The other ‘St Patrick Street’ is now on
display in Waterford County Museum.
These stone plaques were expensive and time consuming
to produce and were replaced in 1885 by cast iron plaques made by Graham of
Waterford. We know approximately when
these plaques were erected as the details are recorded in the minute book of
the Dungarvan Town Commissioners dated 11 December 1885. Nineteen cast iron plaques were ordered from
Benjamin Graham of Waterford at a cost of six shillings and six pence each. In April of the following year John Donovan
was paid £1.7.6 for painting the lettering in white on a blue background. Almost
every street name was changed and renamed after Irish Nationalist figures.
One of these plaques caused much controversy. In November 1885 Maurice Flynn proposed that
Main Street be renamed Parnell Street. In
1889 the Commissioners proposed that plaster busts of Parnell and William
O’Brien M.P. be ordered for the council chamber. However, certain members of the Council
disapproved of Parnell’s relationship with a married woman, Katherine O’Shea,
whom he married after her divorce in June 1891. At their meeting on 3 July 1891 it was agreed
to remove the plaque on Main Street bearing Parnell’s name. Thomas Power proposed that the bust of Parnell
should be removed form the council chamber. Both were removed but the bust resurfaced in
1991 when it was presented to the museum by the then Town Clerk, Bertie White. On the anniversary of Parnell’s death in 1992
Dungarvan UDC erected new plaques, Parnell Street and Parnell Street Lower.
In the council minutes of 6
October 1900 is the following entry:
‘A deputation of the [Gaelic]League waited on the
Council requesting that the names of the principal streets should be marked by
a tablet giving the names of each street translated and written in the Gaelic
Characters’.
Only three can now be seen, Grattan Square, O’Connell
Street and Church Street. They are made
of much thinner metal than those erected in 1885.
