Sir, – The recent list of the most popular forenames in Ireland (I was careful not to describe them as Irish names) tells us, I believe, who/what we really are (Home News, July 12th). Whatever about the names for boys (only one in five being even remotely Gaelic), the fact that all of the five girls’ names listed, ie, Emily, Sophie, Emma, Grace, Lily are Anglo in origin surely tells the story.
Just over a century ago, the first president of our country after independence, Douglas Hyde (a Protestant and son of an Anglo-Irish vicar) wrote a pamphlet entitled The de-anglicisation of Ireland. It took a few years before Gaelic/Irish names appeared on birth certificates, mainly in the aftermath of independence. Female names such as Aoife, Sinead, Siobhan and male names such as Eoghan, Ronan, Connor, Seamus predominated.
However, the past few years has seen a reversion to “good old English names”. Irish by birth, it seems, but not by name. – Yours, etc,