IN the just-released The Rest is History podcast series on the outbreak of the Troubles, Tom Holland claimed that “every geographical expression in this story annoys people”, with Dominic Sandbrook agreeing, saying “every name is a choice”.

The naming of places in Ireland has long been a political and cultural minefield that continues to exercise heated debate.

The ongoing division over Irish language signs in Northern Ireland is a good example of the potency of the issue. The different English names used for places also remains a marker for division.

One of the key indicators of identity on the island is the names we chose to call different places – even the two political jurisdictions themselves, as well as the archipelago we form part of.

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The geographic and political construct of calling these islands the British Isles has been challenged by many, who insist a different name should be used such as the British and Irish Isles, the Anglo-Celt Isles or the Atlantic Archipelago.

Previous Irish governments pushed back on the use of British Isles, with a letter from the Department of External Affairs in 1947 stating that the term was “a complete misnomer and its use should be thoroughly discouraged”, and replaced instead, when necessary, by “Ireland and Great Britain”.

The contested names for the city of Derry/Londonderry or even the Fermanagh town of Rosslea/Roslea are examples of........

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