Celebrating two-hundred years since the founding of the first Ordnance Survey of Ireland, the “OS200—Digitally Re-Mapping Ireland’s Ordnance Survey Heritage” project compiled historic Ordnance Survey (OS) maps and texts from many archives to create a freely available, digital resource for researchers and public users.
At a six-inch to a mile scale, the OS finished the first ever comprehensive survey of a whole nation in Ireland between 1824 and 1842. Celebrated for their precision, these maps are considered by cartographers as among the best ever printed.
Apart from maps, the personnel of the Ordnance Survey—military as well as civilian—recorded other information including topographical characteristics, local customs, antiquities, and archeological and toponymical material. But throughout time, these items have been unevenly kept in different archives, museums, and institutions all around Britain and Ireland.
Working with Queens University Belfast, Digital Repositories of Ireland, and other important collaborators, UL developed the digital archive in the Irish Research Council and Arts and Humanities Research Council co-funded project. Launched in Dublin’s Royal Irish Academy was the initiative.
Leading the UL team was Dr Catherine Porter of the School of History and Geography.
“The key challenge in analysing and researching early accounts of the OS in Ireland, is the sheer volume of information, and the varied state of the materials,” Dr Porter explained.
“Many of the OS records were not easily accessible or searchable and are housed in different locations, so it was difficult to build a complete picture of what happened during the first survey in the early nineteenth century. This project has provided us the opportunity to collate the materials together and develop a new OS archive for the island.”
The project intends to open the histories to wider audiences, so enabling a richer and deeper interaction with and understanding of the OS operations in Ireland two centuries ago by connecting digitally, the OS maps, memoirs, correspondence, drawings and books of placenames into a new online resource.
It will also allow a fresh investigation of how the intricate legacy of the OS in Ireland may be utilized as a beneficial vehicle for discovery and interaction with the past across many Irish communities today.
Combining old OS maps and materials kept in several archives, the resultant project creates a single publicly available online resource for public and scholarly usage.
It has also enabled a team of scholars from all throughout Ireland to investigate the complicated history connected with the survey and its legacies and repercussions still seen in the environment today as well as to find otherwise hidden and forgotten elements of the life and work of individuals employed by the OS.
The new digital archive is not simply cartography focused but also includes the associated written and pictorial accounts of the OS, helping us to engage with the complex colonial histories of the island,” Dr Porter said. The public as well as researchers examining the time will have easy access to the new repository, therefore promoting further knowledge of pre-famine Irish history.
The knowledge gained from the OS200 project can also be a template for innovation in the Digital Humanities and provide best practice in how different approaches and sources from many disciplines and national bodies can and should be gathered together and made available for research and public involvement.
The Digital Archive of Ireland’s Ordnance Survey is now live and more details are accessible on the Ireland Mapped website and the Digital Archive of Ireland’s Ordnance Survey is now online.