200 Years of Irish Maps

The first ever large-scale survey of an entire country was started nearly 200 years ago. From 1825 to 1846 the Irish Ordnance Survey undertook a highly detailed survey of the whole of Ireland in order to create maps primarily at the 6 inch scale.

To celebrate 200 years of Irish mapping the University of Limerick and Queen’s University Belfast has created OS200. The OS200 website is a digital archive of Ireland's Ordnance Survey which allows anyone to browse and explore the Ordnance Survey's First Edition Six-Inch Maps, the OS Memoirs, Letters and Name Books.

The maps themselves are exquisitely detailed and beautifully drawn. Thanks to the digitization work by the OS200 project you can now explore these original Ordnance Survey maps of Ireland in the closest detail as interactive maps. If you are Irish, or have ever visited Ireland, you can have hours of fun exploring places you know on the OS maps, as they looked 200 years ago. You can have just as much fun browsing the Ordnance survey Name Books.

As well as spending years scientifically surveying Ireland the Ordnance Survey sent out agents of the Topographical Department to collect and compile lists of the historical forms of place-names to determine the correct place-name labels to be used on the maps. These Name Books list place-names (with English translations and alternate spellings) but also provide details on the people who live at each place, the people's religions, who owns the land, and who leases the land. It also lists information on the types of crops grown and the condition of the soil. These non-etymological details hint at one of the original purposes of the map -to help the British government levy local taxes.

The broader governmental aims for creating a national map of Ireland are also apparent in the Memoirs. As well as the geographical surveys and place-name collections the Ordnance Survey staff were required to gather additional information "on social and economic conditions, ... the landscape, topography, nature, geology, historical monuments and antiquities, estates, mills, infrastructure, people and culture ..., communications and (provide) 'suggestions for improvement'". These memoirs provide a fascinating glimpse into local life in Ireland in the early 19th Century.