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

Mon Dec 12 01:16:13 UTC 2016

To summarize, prior to 1898, townlands could be neatly nested into civil
parishes, poor law
electoral divisions, and baronies, and these three hierarchies were
independent of each
other - but all three in turn nested neatly into counties. Poor law
divisions nested into poor
law unions which could cross county boundaries.

The 1898 Local Government Act meant that:

a) baronies and civil parishes were no longer used as administrative
divisions - though
they were still legally defined entities,
b) poor law unions were divided into urban and rural districts, although
the electoral
division boundaries remained unchanged except where an electoral division
containing
a town was split into a rural and one or more urban electoral divisions.
(Poor law unions
crossing county boundaries were split into rural districts along the county
boundary
line.)
c) some county boundaries were changed, mainly to bring all of a town into
a single
county, but in some cases to move larger chunks of territory (e.g.
Ballaghaderreen)
fromone county to another. These areas, however, remained in the same
baronies
and civil parishes that they previously had been in.

For post-1898 maps:

a) barony boundaries are still shown and townlands are "nested" within them
- so
Curry (Macmanus) should be split,
b) civil parish boundaries are only shown within urban districts,
c) electoral division boundaries are not explicitly shown at all (except
where they
coincide with an urban district boundary) - one consequence of this is that
townlands
which are "split" between two parishes but where both parts are within the
same
electoral division are shown on the map as a single townland,
d) townland boundaries are not shown at all within county boroughs.

My approach in Longford and Cavan has been to treat townlands "crossing"
civil
parish or barony boundaries as separate entities but to distinguish them as
"Townlandname (X civil parish)" and "Townlandname (Y civil parish)".

Regards,

Paddy.

On Sun, Dec 11, 2016 at 10:08 PM, Patrick Matthews <mullinalaghta at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> 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.
>
>
> Civil parishes and baronies are independent of each other - one is not a
> subdivision of the other.
>
>
>> 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=-7.59
>> 323&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=-6.73
>> 163&layers=B00TFFFFFFFFFFFF.
>> Make of that what you will!
>>
>
> In the Agall example, the townland is "divided" between two civil parishes
> and these two "parts" also
> happen to be in different electoral divisions. After 1898, the civil
> parish boundary was not shown when
> two adjacent "parts" were in the same electoral division.
>
> In the second example, you have a single townland which is spilit between
> an urban and rural electoral
> division (again, before 1898 both the urban and rural portions would have
> formed a single poor law
> electoral division. (As an aside, the mid-20th century editions of the 6
> and 25-inch maps by OSNI
> in Northern Ireland didn't show townland boundaries at all within urban
> districts.)
>
> The original practice of the Ordnance Survey, FWIW, was to treat any
> townland "divided" between two
> civil parishes or two baronies as being two separate townlands. The
> population returns for the 1901 and
> 1911 censuses - after the 1898 Local Government Act - continue to list the
> two "parts" of a townland
> separately even where both lie within the same single electoral division.
>
>
>> 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=-9.256
>> 3&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/-9.1
>> 082&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
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Talk-ie mailing list
>> > Talk-ie at openstreetmap.org
>> > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ie
>> >
>> _______________________________________________
>> Talk-ie mailing list
>> Talk-ie at openstreetmap.org
>> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-ie
>>
>
>