Who decides what a place, a person, or a community should be called? Is a name determined by historical usage, linguistic tradition, local identity, or official legislation? And what happens when these different sources of authority disagree?
Such questions lie at the heart of a newly funded research project at Maynooth University, Ireland, which promises to open an important interdisciplinary discussion between onomastics, law, and cultural studies.
On 14 October 2026, Maynooth University's School of Law and Criminology announced that Dr Noelle Higgins, Associate Professor of Law, had received funding under the Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute (MUSSI) Small Research Grants Scheme 2026.
Her project is entitled:
AINM (Authority, Identity, Naming, and Meaning): Law, Onomastics, and the Governance of Names in Ireland.
The acronym is particularly appropriate: ainm is the Irish word for name.
According to the university, the project brings together law, onomastics, socio-legal studies, and postcolonial scholarship, with a particular focus on Irish-language proper names.
Although the initial announcement provides only a concise description of the project, its subject has considerable significance for contemporary name studies. It raises a question that extends well beyond Ireland: how do legal institutions regulate names whose meanings and social functions have developed through centuries of linguistic and cultural history?
When Names Become a Legal Matter
Proper names are frequently approached as objects of linguistic or historical investigation. Onomasticians examine their etymology, morphology, geographical distribution, semantic motivation, and transmission across generations.
Legal scholarship approaches the same names from a different perspective.
Names appear in legislation, government registers, identity documents, property records, official maps, and administrative decisions. Their spelling, recognition, and use may be regulated by public authorities. A form preserved in oral tradition or historical documentation does not necessarily have the same status as one officially approved for administrative use.
The distinction between linguistic authenticity, historical attestation, customary usage, and legal recognition is especially important in multilingual societies.
Ireland provides a particularly revealing setting for this discussion. Its naming traditions reflect the historical relationship between Irish and English, the consequences of colonial administration, the development of modern state institutions, and continuing efforts to protect and promote the Irish language.
The governance of names therefore concerns more than orthographic correctness. It involves questions of authority, cultural continuity, linguistic rights, and the relationship between communities and institutions.
The title of Higgins's project brings these interconnected dimensions together through four concepts: Authority, Identity, Naming, and Meaning.
Ireland's Place Names: Between History and Official Recognition
Ireland's geographical names provide one of the clearest illustrations of the relationship between onomastics and law.
Many Irish place names were recorded in anglicised forms during centuries of English-language administration. Their development was neither uniform nor linguistically straightforward. Some underwent phonetic adaptation, others were translated, while still others preserved elements of earlier Irish forms in spellings that became increasingly difficult to interpret.
The nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey played an important role in standardising geographical nomenclature. Its researchers collected historical evidence and local pronunciations, but the resulting official spellings were shaped by the linguistic and cartographic practices of their time.
The historical value of these records remains considerable. At the same time, the relationship between a standardised map name and a locally transmitted Irish form can be complex.
Modern Irish legislation has introduced procedures through which Irish-language forms receive official recognition.
Under Article 8 of the Constitution of Ireland, Irish is the national and first official language, while English is recognised as the second official language.
The Official Languages Act 2003, subsequently amended, established a legislative framework for the recognition of Irish geographical names.
Part 5 of the Act addresses place names specifically. Under Section 32, official Irish forms may be declared through statutory Placenames Orders. Section 33 regulates their legal effect, including special provisions concerning names in Gaeltacht areas, where Irish has traditionally been spoken.
This system demonstrates how linguistic research can acquire direct legal consequences.
A historical place-name investigation may establish the evidence for a particular Irish form, but formal legal recognition follows a separate institutional procedure. The responsibilities of the philologist and those of the public authority intersect without becoming identical.
The Dingle Controversy: A Case Study in Naming Authority
One particularly instructive example is the naming controversy concerning Dingle, the well-known town in County Kerry.
The name became the subject of legal and public debate following the adoption of the Irish form An Daingean under the Placenames (Ceantair Ghaeltachta) Order 2004.
The decision raised questions about the relationship between language policy, historical naming traditions, local preferences, and administrative authority.
Subsequent public and political discussions contributed to a legislative intervention.
The Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011 amended the applicable arrangements, establishing Daingean Uí Chúis as the official Irish-language name and Dingle as the official English-language name.
The case illustrates an important distinction between the linguistic interpretation of a name and the authority to determine its official use.
From an onomastic perspective, the historical forms and their etymological relationships constitute one field of investigation. From a legal perspective, the question concerns which forms are recognised and under what conditions. From a sociolinguistic perspective, the preferences and identities of local speakers introduce further considerations.
The Dingle case is not identified in Maynooth University's announcement as part of the AINM project. Nevertheless, it provides a concrete illustration of the type of interaction between naming, law, and public authority that makes the new research initiative so relevant.
The Role of Ireland's Placenames Database
Ireland already possesses a substantial infrastructure for the documentation and study of geographical names.
The Placenames Database of Ireland, available at logainm.ie, is developed by the Gaois research group at Dublin City University in collaboration with the government's Placenames Branch.
The project began in 2007, and its public database was launched in 2008.
Today, it provides a major digital resource for studying official Irish and English place-name forms, historical variants, geographical locations, archival documentation, and linguistic interpretations.
The database distinguishes between several categories of names, including legally validated Irish forms, provisional forms, historical names, and locally used variants.
These distinctions are fundamental to understanding the legal governance of toponymy.
A name may be historically attested without having official status. Another may be recommended by linguistic specialists but remain outside the relevant statutory order. A local variant may be culturally significant even when it differs from the standard administrative form.
For onomasticians, such classifications provide a useful reminder that official status is a legal attribute, not an etymological category.
The existence of substantial digital place-name resources also raises questions about the relationship between documentary authority and public access. As geographical information increasingly circulates through online maps, digital databases, and location-based services, the representation of Irish-language names acquires another dimension.
How official and traditional names are recorded, updated, and made accessible in these systems is a matter of growing importance for digital toponymy.
Noelle Higgins: Cultural Rights and the Legal Significance of Language
The scholarly background of Dr Noelle Higgins makes the AINM project particularly noteworthy.
Higgins is an Associate Professor of Law at Maynooth University. Her research includes international human rights law, international humanitarian law, cultural heritage, and the rights of Indigenous peoples.
She holds postgraduate qualifications in both Irish and Law, bringing linguistic and legal expertise to the new project.
Her previous publications provide useful context for understanding the intellectual questions that may inform AINM.
In 2019, Higgins and Gerard Maguire published Language, Indigenous Peoples, and the Right to Self-Determination in the New England Journal of Public Policy. The article examines the relationship between language, cultural identity, and self-determination, showing how language can function both as an instrument of domination and as a means of cultural resistance.
In another important study, “Songlines and Land Claims; Space and Place”, published in the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law in 2021, Higgins investigated the legal significance of Indigenous Australian Songlines.
These traditions encode relationships between ancestral narratives, geographical features, cultural memory, and territorial knowledge. The article explores their interpretation and use as evidence in legal proceedings concerning land rights.
Although Songlines cannot simply be equated with European place-name systems, this work demonstrates Higgins's longstanding interest in the relationship between language, landscape, cultural meaning, and legal recognition.
Her research on cultural heritage protection, Indigenous expertise, and cultural rights offers further evidence of an interdisciplinary approach in which legal institutions are examined alongside the traditions and knowledge systems of the communities concerned.
The AINM project represents an opportunity to bring these interests into a specifically Irish onomastic context.
The Postcolonial Dimension of Naming
The relationship between names and colonial history deserves particular attention.
Naming has frequently accompanied processes of territorial administration, mapping, settlement, and political reorganisation.
When a government standardises a place name, replaces an established form, or determines the language in which it must be recorded, it exercises a form of authority over the public representation of geographical space.
However, a critical historical approach must distinguish between different mechanisms of name change.
Phonetic adaptation, translation, administrative standardisation, deliberate replacement, and changes arising through ordinary language contact are not identical processes. Nor should every English-language form of an Irish place name automatically be interpreted as the result of a conscious political act.
A rigorous postcolonial onomastics requires historical and linguistic evidence capable of distinguishing these developments.
The legal perspective adds another dimension: even after political independence, inherited naming practices may remain embedded in maps, institutions, administrative records, and everyday language.
Official recognition of an Irish name can consequently involve questions of cultural restoration, public policy, and the relationship between historical evidence and contemporary community preferences.
These issues make Ireland an especially valuable setting for investigating the relationship between onomastic standardisation and linguistic justice.
Beyond Ireland: Why the Project Matters Internationally
The questions raised by AINM are relevant to numerous societies in which traditional naming systems encounter modern legal and administrative structures.
Across the world, disputes and reforms involving Indigenous place names, minority-language names, official bilingual nomenclature, and the restoration of historical names require cooperation between linguists, historians, legal specialists, and public authorities.
International human rights instruments also recognise the relationship between names and cultural identity.
Article 13 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) explicitly recognises Indigenous peoples' right to maintain and transmit their languages and naming traditions, including names for communities, places, and persons.
This provision does not automatically determine the legal position of Irish names, and the historical contexts of Ireland and Indigenous communities elsewhere should not be treated as interchangeable.
Nevertheless, it demonstrates that naming has become an important question within international discussions of cultural rights and self-determination.
For comparative onomastics, this opens several avenues of investigation.
How do states reconcile official naming standards with locally transmitted forms? What role should historical linguistic evidence play in legal decisions? How are community preferences considered? Can legal recognition protect minority-language names without reducing the diversity of their actual usage?
The answers will differ between countries, but the questions are increasingly shared.
A New Direction for Interdisciplinary Onomastics
The AINM initiative is still at an early stage.
Maynooth University's announcement confirms its funding and interdisciplinary orientation, but does not yet specify the research methodology, individual case studies, collaborators, timetable, or intended publications.
The university's MUSSI Small Research Grants Scheme provides seed funding of €1,000–€5,000 for pilot research, preliminary data collection, and the development of future scholarly projects. The exact amount awarded to AINM has not been publicly specified.
It would therefore be premature to attribute particular conclusions or planned outputs to the project.
Its stated research direction is nevertheless significant.
Onomastics has long demonstrated the historical and linguistic value of proper names. Legal scholarship can extend this discussion by examining the institutions and rules through which names become official, acquire legal consequences, or enter into disputes over recognition and identity.
The relationship is reciprocal. Legal decisions concerning names also benefit from an understanding of historical linguistics, semantic development, geographical variation, and the distinction between inherited usage and administrative standardisation.
AINM has the potential to strengthen communication between these areas of scholarship.
Conclusion: Names, Authority, and Cultural Memory
The announcement of AINM at Maynooth University draws attention to a dimension of name studies that deserves greater scholarly consideration.
Names are part of language, but their public use is also shaped by institutions. Historical evidence may explain the origins and development of a name; legal authority determines whether and how particular forms are recognised for official purposes.
Ireland's linguistic history, statutory place-name framework, and continuing engagement with Irish-language heritage provide valuable material for investigating this relationship.
The new project offers a promising opportunity to examine naming as a subject situated between philology, sociolinguistics, legal history, and cultural rights.
For the international onomastic community, its significance lies in a fundamental question:
Who has the authority to determine a name - and how should that authority relate to linguistic history, community identity, and cultural memory?
The development of AINM will be worth following as its research programme takes shape.
Further Reading and Sources
Project announcement
Researcher and institutional information
Dr Noelle Higgins — Maynooth University academic profile
MUSSI Small Research Grants Scheme 2026
Selected publications
Higgins, N., & Maguire, G. (2019). Language, Indigenous Peoples, and the Right to Self-Determination. New England Journal of Public Policy, 31(2), Article 8.
Higgins, N. (2021). Songlines and Land Claims; Space and Place. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 34, 723–741.
Higgins, N., & Donnellan, K. (2023). Ireland's Cultural Policy and the Protection and Promotion of the Cultural Rights of Migrants. Cultural Trends, 32(2), 171–189.
Irish place-name legislation and resources
Constitution of Ireland — Article 8
Official Languages Act 2003 — revised legislation
Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011 — Dingle / Daingean Uí Chúis
Placenames Database of Ireland — Logainm.ie
The Placenames Branch — Government of Ireland
Keywords: Onomastics, toponymy, language policy, cultural identity, postcolonial studies, linguistic rights, AINM, Noelle Higgins, Maynooth University, MUSSI, Ireland.
