The village of Newtownsandes, on the Kerry/Limerick border, exists on a map and a register of electors "but nowhere else". However an attempt to change the name officially to its common name and Irish name, Moyvane, has failed.
The results yesterday of the first vote on a name-change by Kerry County Council failed to gain the required 51 per cent majority of eligible voters.
Altogether 473 ballot papers were returned, with 407 voting for and 66 against, but a minimum of 435 yes voters of the 868 eligible voters was required, a spokesman at the registrar of electors in Kerry County Council said. After the result, pro-change campaigners likened it to "the American election" and vowed not to give up.
Story-teller Mr Dan Keane, who initiated the campaign, said "hullabaloo" in the media had confused the issue.
The village got its official name from the Sandes landlords - Cromwellians who arrived in 1690 and named the townland of Moyvane ("the middle plain") Newtown-Sandes. But it was the love of the Irish language and Irish placenames, rather than a hatred of the Sandes, that led to the plebiscite, according to Mr Keane.
The signposts have said Moyvane since 1975 and the post office is Moyvane, he pointed out, but the electorate was confused by the red herring of other suggested names, a dispute about the proper title of the creamery, and "old history dragged out".
A majority of those who gave signatures after Mass recently, more than 700, wanted the name-change, he said.
Mr Jimmy Deenihan TD, a Kerry county councillor who proposed the change, said he would probably seek another vote after Christmas.