Stroke City

Il Derry City Council (quindi Sinn Fein e SDLP) si rivolge al tribunale per sapere come occorre chiamare la città.

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Yet again the DUP is having a fit over the fact that Derry City Council has lodged papers in the High Court in Belfast to ask a judge to decide upon what the city should be called (if they had given me a call, I could have saved them some cash by telling them it’s ‘Derry’).
Willie Hay of the Democratic Unionist Party said he would never accept Derry as the city's name. Fair enough.
“It's not about branding the name of the city. It's certainly all about stripping the Britishness away from the city,” he said.
“It's all about ignoring the unionist community in the city and further isolating them.”
So Willie, what about the fact that the name change to Londonderry in the first place was about stripping the Irishness away from the city, an act carried out by imperialistic raiders of this island? And what about the fact that by having it referred to as ‘Londonderry’ is ignoring the nationalist community in the city?
After all, democratic elections in Foyle have returned the nationalist SDLP to Westminster, and the SDLP is the biggest party on the city council. Sinn Féin is pretty big there too. The DUP is happy enough to ignore nationalists in areas where unionists are in the majority, so surely it must take the rough with the smooth when a nationalist-dominated council decides to revert its city name back to its original state. And unlike areas such as Ballymena, Lisburn and Castlereagh, this isn’t about excluding the minority (unionists have been given many key roles on Derry City Council since it became mainly nationalist post-gerrymandering), but merely a council attempting to ensure the name of the city reflects the wishes of the people living there.
Willie also said: “The historical name of the city and the proper name of the city is Londonderry. Now, I know in everyday language people would have used the name of Derry.”
Well if Willie is so concerned with history, then how come he ignores the fact that the ‘London’ adjunct was actually a bastardisation of history, given that for 1,000 years before the term ‘Londonderry’ was invented, people lived in the area and it was known as Doire or Doire Cholm Chille. This was anglicised to Derry, then the name was changed to Londonderry in 1613 during the Plantation of Ulster.
If Willie wants to ensure adherence to historical heritage, then perhaps the council should look at getting the name officially designated as ‘Doire’. How could the DUP possibly object to that?

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