French individuals are once more expressing their discontentment, this time against a postal overhaul that will enforce new designations for formerly unnamed rural lanes and digits for homes that had no prior requirement for them. This adjustment will supersede former household address models. According to The London Times, the reform has particularly irked the residents of Brittany. Forefronting the opposition is Jacques Danin, who perceives this as an infringement on the Breton identity.
Danin’s residence is the lone house in the hamlet of “Ty Nevez”, situated in Plouezoc’h district. Given its unique status, postal services have never had difficulties locating it. “Ty Nevez” translates to “new house” in Breton, and akin to “Ty Braz”, meaning “big house”, stands threatened with possible erasure.
However, such names are deemed too ambiguous by Parisian administrators and smartphones alike. Consequently, the district council has abandoned the past address of Danin’s domicile, declaring henceforth, his official residence to be “No 1001 Route de Trobellec”.
Officials assert these updates as merely procedural and administrative in nature. But Danin and like-minded critics firmly contest this viewpoint. Another Breton dissident labels this as a form of “ethnocide”.
Interestingly, this predicament closely mirrors an Irish predicament faced in remote Northern Ireland 50 years ago, which saw drawn-out disputes until it was eventually resolved with some ambivalence following a “Save Our Townlands” movement. The campaign objected against the Royal Mail’s 1972 decision that mandated every isolated house to hold an identifiable number, street name and postal code.
Despite Northern Ireland’s official position deeming townland names as “extraneous data” and encouraging their elimination from addresses in the country, the residents’ strong sentimental attachments towards these remnants of the ancient Gaelic land division system were not reckoned with by the Royal Mail. Townland names held such endearing importance that during the mid-70s, it was one of the rare issues that nationalism and unionism agreed on. Notably, a noteworthy opponent was the nine-county Federation for Ulster Local Studies. Out of the six counties impacted, Fermanagh distinctly stood in opposition.
“Fermanagh rejected the plan outright and it was later annulled by ten other councils out of the 26 local bodies. Some irreparable harm has been inflicted. However, everyone, regardless of their allegiances, now appreciates the significance of these historic townlands,” voiced a local.
Nevertheless, the controversy over townland names continued to echo well into the 21st century due to suspected hesitation by the authorities to include them in addresses. The Northern Ireland Assembly in 2001 approved a motion urging all government departments to use townlands in correspondence.
Despite this, road names were given precedence, causing concern a decade later in Fermanagh over the progressive fading of shared memory. The urgency of the situation was captured in a 2012 Fermanagh Herald editorial article titled, “Clock ticking on our townlands”.
The current French debate finds support for the new road name and number system among emergency services such as firefighters, whose work is hindered by the sometimes quite creative descriptions used to identify rural locations now.
Interpreting directions like, “it’s the house in the hamlet with the green shutters” in the thick of the night can be time-consuming lamented a spokesperson for the National Federation of Fire Officers. However, in the Northern Ireland of the 1970s, local knowledge was vital in such situations.
Scrambling indoors, he dialled 999 from his newly acquired telephone, which was still absent from the official directory, mentioning his location as the previously mentioned local area. “What’s your post code though?” the operator inquired.
Baffled, he didn’t have this information. Finally, after frantically scanning the phone book, he delivered the post code of his closest neighbour.
By the time the fire services discovered them, it was unfortunately too late. The agricultural machine was reduced to a charred wreck and the fire chief was fuming.
“Why didn’t you inform the operator that you resided at Myra Castle?” he interrogated.