Townland

A townland ( baile fearainn Irish ) is the smallest administrative unit area in Ireland, roughly comparable to a district in Germany. Electoral districts are composed of townlands and townlands find postal addresses and the collection of statistical population use. Similarly, the communities of townlands were formed in the 19th century based the tax valuation of land on the townlands. Although the systematic documentation of the land in Ireland began only in the 17th century, the origins of the Irish townland system are much older. Many of the townlands and related structures can be detected even before the Anglo-Norman invasion in the 12th century and probably go back to the Iron Age. Townlands often are in close relationship with the families locally based, so are identity and their names and boundaries are an important foundation for the study of regional history.

Although the origins are older, the final determination of the townlands on the Ordnance Survey goes back to the 1833 to 1846 the first series of 6- inch cards for Ireland published in the period in which the boundaries of all the 62,205 townlands were located. Since 2007, intensive efforts to explore the correct Irish name of townlands and place them in a database.

Origins

The division of the country carried out within a Tuath on several levels, which were pronounced regional differences. In the field of Counties Derry, Donegal and Tyrone example, there was the largest unit, the Ballybetagh (Irish baile biataigh; literally translated: a territory that gives food ) each with four Quarters (Irish ceathrú, "quarter" ) or 16 Ballyboes ( irish baile bó, " Cow Country " ) or 32 Sessiaghs (Irish seisíoch, " sixth ", original case. sixth of a quarter ), the Ballyboes meet the present townlands about. A Ballybetagh was each assigned a Tuath and thus a ruling family network and corresponded to an extremely large land holdings. For example, the size of a Ballybetaghs is in Tyrone estimated to be approximately 5760 acres ( representing approximately 23.3 km ²). Thus, it should not be assumed that a Ballyboe ( in Tyrone average 360 Acre = 1.45 km ² ) corresponds to a cultivated from a small family farm. Perhaps indeed a Ballyboe a family was assigned, but not alone managed this reason but. In combination with other families who did not own land

Surveys in modern times

The Flight of the Earls after the nine-year war ( 1594-1603 ) James I opened the way to confiscate the territorial possessions in Ulster, to settle there, immigrants from Scotland, England and Wales. For this extensive land grants was made possible in an orderly manner, had to be surveyed and mapped the land first. At the end of the 16th century, Ulster had been divided into counties, each of which was divided into several baronies, which corresponded to the previous Ballybetagh. The other intricacies of the Irish land allocation were not understood at that time by the surveyors. The surveyor tried to face the divisions area dimensions and went example assumes that a Ballybetagh would correspond to about 1,000 acres. Under the direction of Josias Bodley 1609 cards of all baronies were made in Ulster in the summer. Here Bodley grabbed team relying on the help of the local people and learned of this, the name and the approximate location of the townlands.

Other surveying and mapping were carried out in the 17th and 18th centuries, each of which was very limited regionally and were not suitable to document the boundaries of the townlands resilient. Analysis of the existing map data at the beginning of the 19th century found that four baronies of County Armagh were best captured with maps at a scale of 8 inches for a mile. The next best cards there was David Aher for County Kilkenny in the scale of 4 inches for a mile, but were already too imprecise to determine the area of ​​a townlands. Some of the cards had already been lost, and there were just lists of townlands available that were subject to taxation. 1824 and 1825, the legal basis for the surveying and mapping of the entire island has been placed in Ireland. The management of the project was transferred to Richard Griffith and he left the actual measurement Thomas Frederick Colby, director of the Ordnance Survey. Colby was already a respected expert in the use of triangulation, the Astro Geodesy and technology based measurements. The tasks of the mapping of Ireland at a scale of 6 inches was for a mile and expressly provided the recording of townlands and their limitations. The cost of the project was initially estimated at 300,000 pounds, with one third of the sum was intended for the measurement of the townlands.

Griffith laid down the procedure for the detection of the townlands. From each Barony Townland the previous lists were taken as a basis, which were first checked with the help of the landowners and the existing card, if any. It also townlands were included that were missing so far in the lists, but were known in the neighborhood for at least 50 years. Then assistants were recruited in each of the local population who were familiar with the boundaries of the townlands. Employees of the Ordnance Survey produced at the site visit immediately sketches to document the townland boundaries on. This was not always easily possible in border disputes or wasteland, the boundaries often had to be set relatively arbitrarily by the employees themselves. This also led to unexpected outbreaks of townlands. For example, were 304 townlands in Inishowen from originally only 180 according to the survey. This also contributed significantly to the increase in cost of the project. Partly also townlands were amalgamated or divided, when the sizes appeared unsuitable. When partitions the original names were widely adopted and east, west, upper, lower supplements etc.. Starting with the County Londonderry in 1833 and up to County Kerry in 1846, the topographic maps for each county were successively published. The townlands were in the first edition very cautious drawn with set in italic Names and dotted borders. Directly below the name of the townlands, the surfaces were specified in Acres, Roods and Perches ( 1/160 acre).