Ordnance Survey Maps of the Counties of Ireland (1824-1846)

The Ordnance Survey Office (now Ordnance Survey of Ireland) commenced its work in 1824 as a Board of Ordnance and Ministry of Defence project and was tasked with the massive undertaking of mapping Ireland on a  scale of six inches to one mile, a hitherto unheard of scale of mapping detail globally. Ireland was the first country in the world to be mapped at this scale. The Ordnance Survey Office's  output and the quality of its work  over its first 25 years of work was to change the course of mapping and cartography, not just in Ireland, but globally. It's initial success led to demands in the late 1830's  from the gentry and commercial interests  in Britain for similar scale maps. 

According to Myles Dungan in his 2024 fantastic book The Land is All That Matters, the Irish mapping project, under the remarkable direction of Colonel Thomas Colby of the Royal Engineers, "mapped more than 60,000 townlands, as well as 441 Baronies and 32 counties incorporating numerous villages, towns and a small number of municipalities". Additionally, with the support one of his most trusted and dedicated reports, Captain Larcom (who later became Under-Secretary of Ireland), large amounts of local  folklore, antiquities, and archeological sites were captured and incorporated into the maps with a group of dedicated Gaelic scholars also working to attribute accurate place names, a difficult task given the many centuries of settlement, invasion and conquest  from Celtic, Viking, Norman, Elizabethan, Cromwellian and Williamite times .

The resources, both military and civilian, which were poured into this effort  are staggering and by the  1830'sThe Ordnance Survey Office  employed over 500 people with a spend of over £860,000 in its first 20 years, the modern equivalent of a circa €250m budget. While occasional imperfections may be found, the overall general quality and engineering craftmanship of the work was remarkable for the period and left an indelible mark of the socio-demographic history of Ireland, preparing the groundwork for the development of the country's infrastructure and its extraordinary network of rail lines.

Regardless of ones personal views about the possible coercive aspects which made this mapping a military aid to firming up the absolute colonisation of Ireland ( the large numbers of barracks even in the smallest of towns is well noted ),   the maps provide an incredible visual, geographic and demographic snapshot of pre-famine Ireland which is globally unique for this period.   Almost 200 years after their first publication we can now not just fully appreciate the engineering and craft of the cartography and history therein,  but see them as remarkable artworks.

The framed maps you will see for each county  are the County Index Maps. These are the maps that were used to identify a grid box on the Index Map where a property or lands were located, each grid box being numbered for reference and which was then obtainable from the OSI or the local council for a fee of a few shillings. To appreciate the overall scale,  each grid box itself would have been the size size as the entire county Index map, for example the County of Galway  has 123 grid boxes, each of which would have been approximately 40 inches by 30 inches!    

Seven Leinster counties (Dublin, Kildare, Louth, Meath , Offaly, Wexford, and Wicklow) are not available but the 25 Index maps for the remaining counties are available to purchase. These are: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Down, Donegal, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kilkenny, Leitrim, Limerick, Laois, Longford Mayo, Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo , Tipperary, Tyrone, Sligo ,Westmeath  and Waterford. The overall visual impact of each index map is quite stunning with  fine detail  across each county being  visible with a magnifying glass. 

Customisations: For customers interested in a particular locality on any the available maps we are also offering a customisation service where your local town, townland or parish can be blown up to a larger size for ease of reading. These can be blown up to the original size as a twin companion to the larger full county map or reproduced in a smaller size frame depending on the area involved. Samples of these are available for some of the counties and we have had several very satisfied customers already. 

Each map is beautifully framed in a Hogarth 18th Century style black and gold sightline  frame behind either glass or plexiglass which  is confirmed after your order is placed. Because the frame is large Plexiglass is recommended to avoid breakages in transit. Glass orders are only accepted in Ireland and where they can be collected by the customer or delivered by Walton Collection staff, and are wall mounted professionally because of the weight of the glass.