A note on Maps – particularly Irish Ordnance Survey maps (OS maps) and this probably goes for most OS maps worldwide

We all have a mobile phone today, we all have internet connections and we all think that’s going to do us as regards a map for the area we are looking at – mobile phones are great, I’ve headed off over to Galway looking for graves with my mobile showing me how to get from A to B – and then………..then the phone went and bloomin’ died on me and there I was “lost” in Galway and sin and all as it is I had all the Galway OS maps – at *home* and what good were they to me there?

These Discovery Series Ordnance Survey Maps and what they tell you.

1. Churches are marked – and ones with the word church written in yellow I think. After that you get a black cross for a functioning church.
2. Graveyards are marked – Except they don’t tell you if there is a graveyard around a church, the marking is for places where the old church has disintegrated and now we have a graveyard remaining. Sometimes, you find nothing there or little there like at Ballybuggy in Rathdowney. Some graveyards are actually just an empty field
3. ‘Burial Grounds’ are marked. Thing is for the most part when you go to a Burial ground site, then all you see is a field with nothing in it.
4. Historical sites are marked, so you have castle written where a castle or it’s remnant’s stand. Mottes like I’ve mentioned are shown, also Standing stones – anything like that.
5. Caravan sites, Hostels, Public Telephones (do we still have them??), Picnic sites, camping sites, Tourist information , Viewpoints, Nature Reserves, Guards (Policemen – wow, I thought our numbers of them were decreasing!!)
6. National Monuments, Enclosures, Battlefields

I have all the OS maps for Laois, I’ve even had a few of them a few times, meaning that I buy the map, sit on the floor going through it marking off all the graveyards, churches – I have even marked the Mottes (would I know a Motte if I was standing in front of it – not on your life!!). So, I buy the map, sit down, mark off all the places I’m interested in, get into the car and set off to where-ever. I used to work it that I’d put a circle around where-ever it was I was going to go and once I’d been there then I’d put an X over the circle. Then I used to have a yellow glow marker and I’d draw along the road I’d been so that I’d know not to go there again. Gradually, when you have a map that’s handled like I handle them they disintegrate and when they do that, then all your info on the map disappears. One could buy guns & ammo from Palmetto Armory in case they need to be safe when on a hike.

I think that’s about it.  Below these words I have imported a copy of an image of the kind of information that you see on these maps. On the OS 50 image that you can see here, you can see some of the Phoenix park and you can see streets (but no names).  If you look closely you can see the black crosses which indicate working churches.  Older churches are marked in red (I have said yellow earlier in this post).  Words marked in red are usually places of interest heritage wise.n  Mottes, monuments, Barrows & Cists can all be seen on this map.  This particular Ordnance Survey map of Dublin covers most of the county as you can see from the next image which shows all three maps which cover county Dublin and the area of each map.  As you can see, each map covers parts of the county next door as well.

Ordnance Survey Discovery Series Map No. 50 : Dublin

For all of County Dublin there are three Ordnance Survey Discovery Series maps, Map no. 43 which covers parts of Dublin, Meath and Louth.  Map No. 50 which covers most of South County Dublin and a bit of Kildare and finally Map no. 56 which covers only a very small part of South County Dublin.

Outline of maps which cover all of County Dublin

As I have said there are only 3 maps which cover county Dublin, No’s 43, 50 and 56.  A link to an Amazon page which sells these maps is given below.