Locals in one Tipperary village will be asked what they want their home to be known as officially later this summer.
The spot in south Tipp is Ballyclerahan on all the maps and official documents.
But a local Cllr is starting a formal process to change it to just Clerihan to end a row that’s lasted decades.
Most local groups are behind the move with the Tidy Towns already having commissioned vintage signs with the new shorter name.
Cllr John Fitzgerald says the process will culminate in locals being asked to decide on the change:
”I put in this motion because since, you know, I’m a resident of Clara myself for many
years, for over nearly 30 years, and the situation is that over the years, it has been constantly spoken about, that the place name of the village be Clerihan, and not Ballyclerihan as it is on all the signage coming into it by the County Council.
”I brought a motion before Clonmel Borough Council to set in train the process
which will start that now to have it changed. We have the Tidy Townes Committee, the Community Council, the GAA in Clerihan, and anyone that you’re talking to … the dogs on the street in Clerihan say that they want it called Clerihan.
”Quite a body of research has been done by local historians like Tony Lyons and others to make this point and to show historically where this was the desire.
”So it will require, I understand, a kind of process, something that will be set out to the people there to decide upon in, I think, late summer this year, something along the lines of a plebiscite.
”And I welcome that because it will kind of once and for all stop this debate. I think the vast majority of people there want to call it Clerihan and we actually have already
bought signs. We’ve got funding for two vintage signs to name it ourselves, the council have agreed they’ll erect them, but they have to go through this process.”
