[OSM-talk-ie] Can Townlands be split for Civil parishes and barony boundries?

Mark Tully markjtully at gmail.com
Sat Dec 10 13:56:00 UTC 2016


Hi Brian,

My own opinion would be that townlands shouldn't be split in OSM and if
they overlap parishes, then it's up to the software using the OSM data to
figure out how to handle them.

As far as I understand it, townlands don't necessarily add up to civil
parishes, civil parishes don't necessarily add up to baronies and baronies
don't necessarily add up to counties.  Furthermore, townlands don't
necessarily add up to electoral divisions.  In rural areas, the GSGS3906
map splits the townland into 2 pieces (e.g. Agall (ED Derrycoooly) and
Agall (ED Screggan) at
http://maps.openstreetmap.ie/?zoom=16&lat=53.26048&lon=-7.59323&layers=B00TFFFFFFFFFFFF,
but in urban areas, it doesn't, it just cuts the ED (and town) boundary
through the townland e.g.
http://maps.openstreetmap.ie/?zoom=15&lat=52.80303&lon=-6.73163&layers=B00TFFFFFFFFFFFF.
Make of that what you will!

Regarding some of your specific issues:
3: I've come across several areas with CPs covering 2 non adjoining areas
so this doesn't look that unusual e.g.:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/4280429
4: I think it's just awkwardly shaped.  Not sure if there's a boundary at
the narrow part or not on
http://maps.openstreetmap.ie/?zoom=16&lat=53.8103&lon=-9.2563&layers=B00TFFFFFFFFFFFF,
but I don't see the name for the second townland on the GSGS3906 map if it
is.

Bear in mind that this is all just my own opinion and others may disagree.

Hope this helps,
Mark

On Thu, 1 Dec 2016 at 22:05 Brian Tuffy <brian.tuffy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> I'm fairly new to OSM, I map under the username OscarBrownbread.
> I have been mapping Castlebar and Co. Mayo. Recently I have been looking
> more at townlands!!!!
>
> I have found many spelling errors in townland names (approx 10) in my
> locality. Cross referencing them with the loganim data helped correct them.
> Anyway, I now see many other challenges, I see many townlands that look
> like they should be split. This is usually because of civil parishes (CPs)
> or baronies going through them.
>
> Here are some of the issues I have come across in my area.
> (0) townland spelling mistakes due to hard-to-read or missing letters in
> the Brittish War Maps source
> (1) Civil parish "Balla" missing
> (2) CP "Mayo" is split into two parts, "Mayo (clanmorris portion)" and
> "Mayo (kilmaine portion)" due to different baronies
> (3) townland "Brownhall Demense" belonging to CP "Mayo" disconnected from
> the rest of the CP (disconnected by the CP Balla which we still need to add
> to OSM). This forms two closed ways in the boundary relation instead of
> one.
> (4) townland "Lugaphuill" really looks like it should be split in two
> separate townlands with the same name that border eachother, but it is
> currently one big townland in OSM. Now the name label (centroid) is in
> another townland.
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/53.8103/-9.2563&layers=N
>
> Ok, So I am Not looking for advice on how to solve each issue, that I can
> try myself as I go forward. If you are curious, you can check out my OSM
> map notes here.
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/note/799945#map=13/53.7623/-9.1082&layers=N.
> But, I do need to know how to split townlands,
>
> My question is, Should we split townlands to make parish/barony borders
> more accurate?
> This results in townlands with the exact same name bordering eachother.
> Wouldn't this result in confusion for search engines, programming database
> etc. ?? Is it even possible to handle this?
> If we do split them (as it is shown on the more recent maps), should we
> name them differently? e.g. ballytown #1, ballytown #2 ?
> Possibly, name= ballytown, name_official=ballytown#1 or something like
> that?
> I suppose we should rename but Townland names from the maps already contain
> "north" "south" "east" "upper" "lower" etc. (BTW, anyone know why "upper"
> is always to the south??)
>
> Whatever we do, I don't think we should do anything logical or sensible,
> that would not be in the spirit of mapping townlands ha ha ;p
> (Jasus... I just came across "Buncam North" and below it, "Buncam East"....
> where the hell is Buncam south?? ....Ahhh  ok.)
>
> If I understand correctly:
> (a) Townlands add up to parishes (so they should not overlap eachother),
> yes or no?
> (b) parishes and baronies are independent and can overlap eachother. yes or
> no?
>
> Thanks for those who have read my rant this far, I hope this can help new
> mappers.
> I understand that electorial districts (EDs) are more official but I hope I
> can better understand how to proceed with splitting townlands and naming
> townlands.
>
> Finally, I love our old townlands and I only want to help make them
> accurate and available for all. Down with Eircodes, up with Townlands!! he
> he
>
> All the best,
> Brian
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