[OSM-talk-ie] Townlands and N.I

[Patrick Matthews]

On Tue, Feb 26, 2019 at 10:58 AM Cormac O Murchú <com at iol.com> wrote:

> This is unfinished business for us really.
>
>
>
> In 1921 the whole of Ireland was built like.
>
>
>
> Townlands > grouped into
>
> Electoral Divisions  > grouped into
>
> Rural Districts or Urban Districts >  > grouped into
>
> Counties.
>
>
>
> In 2016 the south of Ireland is built like.
>
>
>
> Townlands > grouped into
>
> Electoral Divisions  > grouped into
>
> Municipal Districts  > grouped into
>
> Counties.
>
>
>
> And that latter structure corresponds to admin levels 10 to 7 inclusive.
>
>
>
> In NI a key change occurred immediately after partition.
>
>
>
> Electoral Divisions  were deliberately deprecated in favour of Wards. A
> Ward
> is _a different grouping system for whole townlands_ and the creation of
> these Wards was a political decision made in 1923.
>

Strictly speaking, what happened in 1923 was that electoral divisions were
redrawn and some rural districts were merged (Belleek/Irvinestown and
Lisnaskea/Clones No. 2 in Fermanagh, Crossmaglen/Newry No. 2 in Armagh, the
upper Ards being moved from Downpatrick to Newtownards RD). The orders
defining the new DEDs can be found in the online issues of the Belfast
Gazette at the time and the lists of townlands in each new DED can be seen
in the subsequent census reports from 1926 to 1961. There were further
limited changes at later stages (Downpatrick, Kilkeel, Whitehead,
Newtownabbey being set up as independent urban districts, the merger of the
remainder of Belfast RD into Lisburn RD and the redrawing of DED boundaries
in what were then the Belfast suburbs). The term "wards" was at that stage
only used for subdivisions of urban districts and boroughs.

In 1973 with the restructuring of local government, the term "ward" was
extended to all electoral divisions. There have been three iterations of
wards under the 26-council structure (1973, 1984 and 1992) and one under
the 11-council structure.

Paddy.


>
>
>
> Wards are the admin_level=9 building block in NI.  > grouped into
>
>
>
> District Electoral Areas are the admin_level=8 building block in NI. >
> grouped into
>
>
>
> District Councils like “Fermanagh and Omagh District Council” are the
> admin_level=7 building block. There are 11 of these councils across the 6
> counties.
>
>
>
> The problem is that they often cross county lines unlike in the south where
> no admin level =7 crosses an admin_level=6 boundary. JOSM will fair hiss I
> tells yiz.
>
>
>
> The 32 counties with admin_level=6 tags no longer legally matter SAVE that
> most admin_level=6 entities in the south are coextant with an admin_level=7
> entity with the same name, excepting Cork Dublin and Galway which have more
> admin_level=7 entities than admin_level=6 entities.
>
>
>
> Admin_level=5 entities (provinces) have not existed since the Normans cane,
> in effect. We maintain them as an administrative conceit like we do
> admin_level=6. :)
>
>
>
> In NI Electoral Divisions are boundary=historic (like baronies and cps and
> rds and plu’s are) and with no admin level tag, this has been the case
> since
> 1923, long before OSM ever came along.
>
>
>
> HTH
>
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