Came across this, if not too late Townlands, parishes and baronies were the main geopolitical units marked and named on the maps. These were standardised, defined and fixed on the maps in a way they had never been before. Through the choice of script style of the placename, linework marking the boundary and the actual fixing of the boundary itself, the Ordnance Survey was able to create an official and administrative landscape. Today, for example, townlands still define the land division for such state institutions as the Department of Agriculture (for keeping track of veterinary 78 Landscape, Memory and History service and, more recently, the spread of foot and mouth disease). Townlands are the basis for recording the national census and form the boundaries of electoral wards (Canavan 1991; Dallat 1991). Measuring and fixing the townland boundary sometimes resulted in altering that townland, by combining smaller townlands or by dividing larger townlands. But while the Ordnance Survey fixed these boundaries on the maps for administrative purposes, local social meaning and histories were also being scripted in the maps. Baronies correspond closely to the old Gaelic Tuath or tribal division and it was upon this land division unit that taxes were levied during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Parishes (many dating from the twelfth century) were a religious division of land over which local clergy had jurisdiction. But it was the townland that was (and is) the distinguishing, albeit invisible, landscape feature of Ireland. Many townland names are of great antiquity and they are important not just because they became the unit for administration during the nineteenth-century on the Ordnance Survey maps, but because townlands are the centralising focus of social identity in rural Ireland. ‘Centuries old, they have not only defined the land but the people’ (Canavan 1991: 49). They are imbued with memory and tradition through local knowledge of events or experiences that occurred at that place. They locate where one lives, linking one’s identity to belonging in land and home (Lovell 1998).
It is from "Landscape, Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives” Edited by Stewart, P and Strathern, A (2003) in the chapter by Angèle Smith "Landscape Representation: Place and Identity in Nineteenth Century Ordnance Survey Maps of Ireland" > On 16 Aug 2016, at 12:42, Stephen Roulston <srouls...@me.com> wrote: > > Below is paraphrased (and a little extended) from the general introduction in > the Place-names of Northern Ireland series published by the Northern Ireland > Place-name Project, Department of Celtic, Queen’s University Belfast > > Earliest place names are found in mainly Irish language material, sometimes > in Latin, from 7th or 8th centuries. This is them written for the first time > - they are much older than that. The Irish Annals, started about 550AD, had > many place names particularly of tribes, settlements and topographical > features. Some of the legends recorded in the Annals give explanations of > place names. For example, the triumphal charge around Ireland of the Brown > Bull at the end of the Tain Bo Cuillaigne is said to have generated many > names. The townland/region of Athlone or Áth Luain was named from the loins > (luan) of the White-horned bull that the Brown Bull killed there. Some must > be very ancient. A number relate to Maeve, who originated as a Mother Earth > fertility god. There is Ballypitmaeve, close to Glenavy in Co.Antrim, for > instance, where the fertility reference is very clear. > > We cannot know how old townland names are, but it is clear that they are very > ancient, and they were present, and probably already very old when written > records began in Ireland. Incidentally, it is ironic that it took the > Plantation in the 17th Century to gather the names in a systematic way. It is > also curious that, while Sir William Petty, who surveyed much of Ireland, > said that Irish place names were ‘uncouth and unintelligible’ and that ‘where > they cannot be abolished’, they should be translated into English, the > planters in most cases retained the original names. > > >> On 15 Aug 2016, at 19:14, Killian Driscoll <killiandrisc...@gmail.com >> <mailto:killiandrisc...@gmail.com>> wrote: >> >> On 15 August 2016 at 20:01, Killian Driscoll <killiandrisc...@gmail.com >> <mailto:killiandrisc...@gmail.com> <mailto:killiandrisc...@gmail.com >> <mailto:killiandrisc...@gmail.com>>> >> wrote: >> >>> On 15 August 2016 at 19:17, Rory McCann <r...@technomancy.org >>> <mailto:r...@technomancy.org>> wrote: >>> >>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >>>> Hash: SHA1 >>>> >>>> Hiya, >>>> >>>> As yous know, myself and Dave are doing a talk about townlands at the >>>> global OSM conferences, State of the Map, in Brussels in September. >>>> >>>> Can anyone tell me more about the history of townlands? Something nice >>>> to add to a slide? >>>> >>> >>> See this which talks about boundaries - Baronies etc (you could say the >>> townlands line up with the baronies....) - based from the Iron Age >>> https://www.academia.edu/3206604/Kingship_and_ >>> <https://www.academia.edu/3206604/Kingship_and_> >>> Sacrifice_Iron_Age_Bog_Bodies_and_Boundaries if you Google the bog bodies >>> in images you should get some you can use >>> >> >> This pdf talks a bit about the history and the naming in the 19C etc >> Landscape representation: Place and identity in nineteenth-century ordnance >> survey maps of *Ireland* >> <http://www.academia.edu/download/15820198/20110506220925888.pdf#page=76 >> <http://www.academia.edu/download/15820198/20110506220925888.pdf#page=76><http://www.academia.edu/download/15820198/20110506220925888.pdf#page=76 >> <http://www.academia.edu/download/15820198/20110506220925888.pdf#page=76>>> >> A Smith - Landscape, Memory and *History*, Pluto Press: London, 2003 - >> academia.edu <http://academia.edu/> <http://academia.edu/ >> <http://academia.edu/>> >> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>> I've heard that townlands were mentioned in the Táin Bó Cúailnge. Can >>>> anyone tell me more about this? >>>> >>>> I looked at [the scans of the Lebor na hUidre (Book of the Dun >>>> Cow)](https://www.isos.dias.ie/master.html?https://www.isos. >>>> dias.ie/libraries/RIA/RIA_MS_23_E_25/english/index.html? >>>> ref=http://www.isos.dias.ie/libraries/RIA/english/ria_menu.html?ref=), >>>> is anyone able to point to a word on a page and say "This is townland >>>> X in Co. Whatever". (I tried it myself, but er, it's Old Irish). It >>>> would impress to the Americans & other Europeans that the townlands >>>> are ancient, and a part of our history, heritage and culture. We >>>> didn't spend all these years mapping them just cause. >>>> >>>> Any hints? >>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >>>> Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) >>>> >>>> iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJXsfkoAAoJEOrWdmeZivv2NkoH/2dD/XUWA/3EDX/t04G4C+r+ >>>> FYzLmLgkGIplClf7w1Ux0wB/6ZYgtht6dvZ8DQvRaG6YxbREZXA40HLfcsLoSru2 >>>> 1/eAOZeEReft7oQjugsZs+uPUNzX01PZ4bk7GTZ12/bfCDwcdAX8lAJhwIGl+Lf2 >>>> ZWKaVCNq5UmCZtUJvTs/3u5YX3nVrYorjwkQ2+X6/T/Y/jN71kxen1vLrMNJRiQ+ >>>> 7oEAesQwUT6Vj87mMKJ2Iw3N/6LG6TxwfHSn2etF7Syb4geOV/K6kjPblcQ1usQ5 >>>> PBSB2OB9h5Apav9QyLIq+u/P1NILDOzUJbSAv/qmyMSUBC3IArhw1hohgGum938= >>>> =1GX2 >>>> -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Talk-ie mailing list >>>> Talk-ie@openstreetmap.org >>>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ie >>>> >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Talk-ie mailing list >> Talk-ie@openstreetmap.org >> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ie > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-ie mailing list > Talk-ie@openstreetmap.org <mailto:Talk-ie@openstreetmap.org> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ie > <https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ie> _______________________________________________ Talk-ie mailing list Talk-ie@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ie
