3 Responses to Roll On 2014!

1. ardmajell55 says:

   January 2, 2013 at 4:30 pm

   I think It would be a good move to have the new Culture designation for the charter to be amended to as the Derry in it’s rightful place in front of the name, but with the london and the other derry continuous rather than with thstroke since this would mean the BT and Newsletter couldn’t carry on insisting on the old charter version. It would look silly to have articles littered with the new name and they couldn’t say they were any longer using the official title in carrying on with the London prefix without giving their real motives away. Also politicians like Campbell wouldn’t be able to claim their ‘london’ was removed. Hope that all makes sense.Happy new year to all here..

   Reply
   • fitzjameshorse says:

     January 2, 2013 at 5:31 pm

     Its not so much the “Derry-Londonderry” thing itself…..its the sleight of hand which seems to be at work.
     It has crept in and SDLP people in Derry are openly using the phrase.
     In 2010 I was at the SDLP Conference when Margaret Ritchie made her Leaders speech and said she wasnt afraid to use the term “Northern Ireland”. At the time I blogged that there would be no chance of her saying “Londonderry”.
     Yet for several months the term “Derry-Londonderry” has become more common.
     Its funny how things that start off as a joke become accepted.
     For example in the 1970s the Irelands Saturday Night newspaper ran the John Pepper column which regularly featured words from the Norn Iron dialect. Nobody could realistically have thought that within twenty-five years all this would be re-packaged as “Ulster Scots language”.
     Likewise two decades ago, Gerry Anderson was at least tongue in cheek referring to “Derry-Londonderry……..stroke city”.
     Although I have mixed 1970s memories of Derry……….complicated story involving courting a Limavady girl, the Lough Swilly bus to Buncrana, missing my Dungannon bus and having to get a taxi to Newtownstewart.. At one level I dont care what the City is called. Its a matter for the people who live there.
     But what is happening seems to be that the years events are being used to make the City feel good about itself………which is fair enough……..and that there will be some kinda official recognition of a new “shared” name when the curtain is brought down.

     Reply
2. ardmajell55 says:

   January 3, 2013 at 10:54 am

   FJH. I’ve very few memories of Derry from the early troubles as I wasn’t from the city but I remeber the day of the famous/infamous march of 5th of October ’68, as it was the day before I was 13. As for the city’s name a cumbersome name is always going to be shortened in daily usage whatever the politics so if it was still Derry-Calgach, it would still end up as just Derry.

   Reply