The Republic of Oirland

Fintan O'Toole has a hilarious column in Tuesday's Irish Times (subs. req'd), although the anecdotes contained therein are pathetic -- pathetic in what they reflect about modern Ireland. Fintan's latest tirade is linked to the widespread rebranding of the country as a literary theme park, with the twist of supreme incompetence in its implementation. For example:

...from the website of one of the major institutions of learning in the city of Joyce and Yeats, the Dublin Institute of Technology: "The Abbey Theatre is one of the landmarks of Irish drama and was set up by the Irish National Theatre Society in 1904 and kept to Yates (sic)idealistic dream by producing the works of Irish playrights (sic) such as Synge and O Casey."

There follows many further examples of references to a Mr Yates, apparently a giant of Irish literature. There's no defence for this idiocy; the only thing we can think of is the fear of God that our English teacher managed to inspire in us should anyone in the class get their wires crossed in the pronunciations of Keats and Yeats; perhaps it was like this for generations at Irish secondary schools, and so in our heads we developed the spelling Yates to be sure to get it right, with the unintended consequence that it's now the preferred spelling of the unfortunate WB's surname.

But it's not just Yeats, and the rebranding craze knows no shame:

[from official govt website] Brendan Behan..."became enthusiastically involved in the IRA's youth wing at an early age"..."Existentialist, eccentric Samuel Beckett painted his masterful, esoteric plays with a palette of anguish, ennui, and futility"...
...At the Druid's Glen Hotel and Country Club in Wicklow, you can dance in the James Joyce Ballroom, do unspeakable things in the Oscar Wilde Suite, get buried up to your neck in sand in the Samuel Beckett Room, muse in the William Butler Yeats Room, and hold a meeting of your company (which sells, presumably, succulent roasted babies) in the Jonathan Swift Boardroom. The Park West industrial estate in Dublin has streets called Joyce Way, Yeats Way and Heaney Avenue

What should we expect from the people who brought us ReJoyce 2004?