Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSI; ga, Suirbhéireacht Ordanáis Éireann) is the

national mapping agency A national mapping agency is an organisation, usually publicly owned, that produces topographic maps and geographic information of a country. Some national mapping agencies also deal with cadastral matters. According to 2007/2/EC European directi ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. It was established on 4 March 2002 as a body corporate. It is the successor to the former Ordnance Survey of Ireland. It and the

Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland {{Unreferenced, date=April 2021 Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI) was the official mapping agency of Northern Ireland. The agency ceased to exist separately on 1 April 2008 when it became part of Land and Property Services, an executiv ...

(OSNI) are the ultimate successors to the Irish operations of the British

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. OSI is part of the Irish public service. OSI has made modern and historic maps of the state free to view on its website. OSI is headquartered at Mountjoy House in the

Phoenix Park The Phoenix Park ( ga, Páirc an Fhionnuisce) is a large urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its perimeter wall encloses of recreational space. It includes large areas of grassland and tre ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

. Mountjoy House was also the headquarters, until 1922, of the Irish section of the British

Organisation

Under the Ordnance Survey Ireland Act 2001, the Ordnance Survey of Ireland was dissolved and a new corporate body called Ordnance Survey Ireland was established in its place. OSI is now an autonomous corporate body, with a remit to cover its costs of operation from its sales of data and derived products, which has sometimes raised concerns about the mixing of public responsibilities with commercial imperatives. It employs 235 staff in the Phoenix Park and in six regional offices in

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

Ennis Ennis () is the county town of County Clare, in the mid-west of Ireland. The town lies on the River Fergus, north of where the river widens and enters the Shannon Estuary. Ennis is the largest town in County Clare, with a population of 25,27 ...

Kilkenny Kilkenny (). is a city in County Kilkenny, Ireland. It is located in the South-East Region and in the province of Leinster. It is built on both banks of the River Nore. The 2016 census gave the total population of Kilkenny as 26,512. Kilken ...

Longford Longford () is the county town of County Longford in Ireland. It has a population of 10,008 according to the 2016 census. It is the biggest town in the county and about one third of the county's population lives there. Longford lies at the meet ...

Sligo Sligo ( ; ga, Sligeach , meaning 'abounding in shells') is a coastal seaport and the county town of County Sligo, Ireland, within the western province of Connacht. With a population of approximately 20,000 in 2016, it is the List of urban areas ...

and

Tuam Tuam ( ; ga, Tuaim , meaning 'mound' or 'burial-place') is a town in Ireland and the second-largest settlement in County Galway. It is west of the midlands of Ireland, about north of Galway city. Humans have lived in the area since the Bron ...

.A Brief History
Ordnance Survey Ireland. OSI had sales of €13.3 million in 2012.

Products

The most prominent consumer publications of OSI are the ''Dublin City and District Street Guide'', an atlas of Dublin city, and the ''Complete Road Atlas of Ireland'' which it publishes in co-operation with Land and Property Services Northern Ireland (formerly the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland). The board also publishes (jointly with OSNI) a series of 1:50000 maps of the entire island known as the ''Discovery Series'' and a series of 1:25000 maps of places of interest (such as the

Aran Islands The Aran Islands ( ; gle, Oileáin Árann, ) or The Arans (''na hÁrainneacha'' ) are a group of three islands at the mouth of Galway Bay, off the west coast of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, with a total area around . They constitute the histo ...

and

Killarney Killarney ( ; ga, Cill Airne , meaning 'church of sloes') is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Ireland. The town is on the northeastern shore of Lough Leane, part of Killarney National Park, and is home to St Mary's Cathedral, Ross Castl ...

national park) and the Geology of Ireland.

History

Thomas Colby, the long-serving Director-General of the

in Great Britain, was the first to suggest that the Ordnance Survey be used to map Ireland. A highly detailed survey of the whole of Ireland would be extremely useful for the British government, both as a key element in the process of levying local taxes based on land valuations and for military planning. In 1824, a committee was established under the direction of Thomas Spring Rice, MP for

Limerick Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...

, to oversee the foundation of an Irish Ordnance Survey.Rachel Hewitt, 'Ensign of Empire', ''Map Of A Nation: A Biography Of The Ordnance Survey'' (Granta Books, 7 Jul 2011) Spring Rice believed in the importance of Irish involvement in the mapping process but was overruled by the

Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of ...

, who did not believe Irish surveyors were qualified for the task. Instead, the Irish Ordnance Survey was initially staffed entirely by members of the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. From 1825–46, teams of surveyors led by officers of the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

, and men from the ranks of the

Royal Sappers and Miners The British Army during the Victorian era served through a period of great technological and social change. Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, and died in 1901. Her long reign was marked by the steady expansion and consolidation of the Br ...

, traversed Ireland, creating a unique record of a landscape undergoing rapid transformation. The resulting maps (primarily at 6″ scale, with greater detail for urban areas, to an extreme extent in Dublin) portrayed the country in a degree of detail never attempted before, and when the survey of the whole country was completed in 1846, it was a world first. Both the maps and surveying were executed to a high degree of engineering excellence available at the time using

triangulation In trigonometry and geometry, triangulation is the process of determining the location of a point by forming triangles to the point from known points. Applications In surveying Specifically in surveying, triangulation involves only angle me ...

and with the help of tools developed for the project, most notably the strong "limelight". The concrete triangulation posts built on the summits of many Irish mountains can still be seen to this day. The Royal Engineer officers in charge of the operation were Thomas Colby and

Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often sub ...

Thomas Larcom Major-General Sir Thomas Aiskew Larcom, Bart, PC FRS (22 April 1801 – 15 June 1879) was a leading official in the early Irish Ordnance Survey. He later became a poor law commissioner, census commissioner and finally executive head of the B ...

. They were assisted by George Petrie, who headed the Survey's Topographical Department which employed the likes of John O'Donovan and

Eugene O'Curry Eugene O'Curry ( ga, Eoghan Ó Comhraí or Eoghan Ó Comhraidhe, 20 November 179430 July 1862) was an Irish philologist and antiquary. Life He was born at Doonaha, near Carrigaholt, County Clare, the son of Eoghan Ó Comhraí, a farmer, and hi ...

in scholarly research into placenames.

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

J.E. Portlock compiled extensive information on agricultural produce and natural history, particularly geology. Despite the exclusion of Irish surveyors, this mapping scheme provided numerous opportunities for employment to Irish people, who worked as skilled or semi-skilled fieldwork labourers, and as clerks in the subsidiary Memoir project that was designed to illustrate and complement the maps by providing data on the social and productive worth of the country. The total cost of the Irish Survey was £860,000 (adjusted for inflation, equivalent to approximately £100,000,000 in 2018). The original survey was later revisited and revised maps were issued on a number of occasions. All of these historical maps (at least up to 1922) are in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...

and while the originals can be hard to find, they can be freely reproduced.

From 1922

The British

ceased to map Ireland just before the creation of the

Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between th ...

in 1922 (the

Partition of Ireland The partition of Ireland ( ga, críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. I ...

having already taken place in May 1921 upon the creation of

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

). The new

(OSNI) officially came into existence on 1 January 1922, while the new Ordnance Survey of Ireland (OSI) came into being slightly later, on 1 April 1922. The OSI was initially part of the

Irish Army The Irish Army, known simply as the Army ( ga, an tArm), is the land component of the Defence Forces of Ireland.The Defence Forces are made up of the Permanent Defence Forces – the standing branches – and the Reserve Defence Forces. The Ar ...

under the

Department of Defence Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

. All staff employed were military personnel until the 1970s, when the first civilian employees were recruited. In more recent times, the Ordnance Survey of Ireland replaced traditional ground surveying with mapping based primarily on aerial photography. It has also worked with the postal service,

An Post (; literally 'The Post') is the state-owned provider of postal services in Ireland. An Post provides a "universal postal service" to all parts of the country as a member of the Universal Postal Union. Services provided include letter post, p ...

, to gather and structure geographic data.

Cultural depiction

The national survey carried out between 1825 and 1846 is the focus of the 1981 play ''

Translations Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

'' by

Brian Friel Brian Patrick Friel (c. 9 January 1929 – 2 October 2015) was an Irish dramatist, short story writer and founder of the Field Day Theatre Company. He had been considered one of the greatest living English-language dramatists. (subscription req ...

. The main theme is the inscription of

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

place names in an

anglicised Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...

form, using a phonetic rendering for British

anglophone Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the ''Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest language ...

ears of an approximate

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

pronunciation.

References

;Notes *Andrews, J.H., ''A Paper landscape: the Ordnance Survey in nineteenth-century Ireland'' (Oxford, 1975). *McWilliams, P.S., "The Ordnance Survey Memoir of Ireland: Origins, Progress and Decline" (PhD thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 2004). *''Report on Ordnance Memoir'' (1843), HC 1844 (527) xxx, 259–385. *''An Illustrated Record of the Ordnance Survey in Ireland'' (The O.S.I., Dublin, and the O.S.N.I., Belfast, 1991).

External links

Official website of OSi

Official website of OSNI

Interactive Ordnance Survey Maps

Alternative Source of Land Registry Compliant Maps

(unusable) try http://map.geohive.ie/

An eye on the Survey
at

History Ireland ''History Ireland'' is a magazine with a focus on the history of Ireland. The first issue of the magazine appeared in Spring 1993. It went full-colour in 2004 and since 2005 it is published bi-monthly. It features articles by a range of writers ...

19th Century Ordnance Survey of Ireland
at Translations
Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) 19th Century Historical Maps: collection of mainly 19th-century maps of almost 150 cities, towns, and villages in the Republic of Ireland.
A UCD Digital Library Collection.
Geological Survey Maps Collection. Over 200 maps of Ireland 1859-1913.
A UCD Digital Library Collection.
Historic Maps Collection. 18th and 19th-century historic maps of Ireland.
A UCD Digital Library Collection.
Maps of Dublin accompanying Thom's Official Directory, printed by the Ordnance Survey for the Dublin publisher Alexander Thom from the six-inch map sheets 18 and 22, and dating from the late 19th century.
A UCD Digital Library Collection. {{authority control Government agencies of the Republic of Ireland National mapping agencies Irish toponymy Phoenix Park Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage