[OSM-talk-ie] History of Townlands - What can we put on a slide?

Fri Aug 19 09:53:13 UTC 2016

On 19 August 2016 at 11:39, Stephen Roulston <sroulston at me.com> wrote:

> 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"
>

Yes, that is an excerpt of the article I posted a link to the pdf four days
ago:

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 -

>
>
> > On 16 Aug 2016, at 12:42, Stephen Roulston <sroulston at 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 <killiandriscoll at gmail.com
> <mailto:killiandriscoll at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 15 August 2016 at 20:01, Killian Driscoll <killiandriscoll at gmail.com
> <mailto:killiandriscoll at gmail.com> <mailto:killiandriscoll at gmail.com
> <mailto:killiandriscoll at gmail.com>>>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On 15 August 2016 at 19:17, Rory McCann <rory at technomancy.org <mailto:
> rory at 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-----
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
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