An Post moves a chunk of Connemara into Galway City

Parts of the Connemara Gaeltacht are now in Galway City – at least according to An Post.

A letter with an Irish language address arrived days late at its Indreabhán destination with a label stuck on the envelope telling the receiver it had been wrongly addressed.

The ‘Co na’ in the Co na Gaillimhe part of the address – 15 miles west of the city – was struck out and the bi-lingual label declared it as incorrect.

And according to people in Connemara, it happens regularly with mail that carries addresses in Irish.

In Irish, County Galway is translated as Condae na Gaillimhe (which may be abbreviated to Co na Gaillimhe). Gaillimh on its own simply means Galway, referring to the city.

An Post, in reply to queries from The Connacht Tribune, insisted that the address in the latest case was indeed incorrect as the last line should have been written as Galway (Gaillimh).

The receiver of the mail told The Connacht Tribune that she was “aghast” at the address being declared wrong by the national postal service.

“Even children in national school with a basic knowledge of Irish would know that Co na Gaillimhe means County Galway. In my case the delay didn’t make a big difference but what if it was something more urgent?”

A spokeswoman for An Post said: “The address as shown in the image is, in fact, incorrect in that the last line ought to be written as ‘Galway’ (Gaillimh) – as in it is delivered from Galway City, and not County Galway (Co na Gaillimhe) as that mail is routed elsewhere.

“That is why the sticker was applied. Customers may check the correct form of any address in Irish or English by consulting our online bilingual Address Checker facililty at www.anpost.ie/addresschecker.”

She added that their technology does ‘read’ Irish language addresses provided they are clearly written/printed.

Read more in this week’s Connacht Tribune