Interesting Maps

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

Three proposed borders in the north east of Ireland from 1914 - at a time when "Ulster" was looking to be excluded from Home Rule.

The third one became the official border of the Irish Free State in 1922, and remained so when the Boundary Commission failed to offer an alternative.

1. WF Bailey (Estates Commissioners Office)


"Taking WF Bailey first, his was the most disruptive scheme and it paid the least heed to existing administrative boundaries. Instead, Bailey relied on physical geography to craft a more visible border. In Fermanagh, Bailey cut straight through both of the county’s parliamentary divisions, running his boundary line directly up the middle of the Erne waterways system. Of the three schemes, Bailey’s was the only one in which his accompanying notes made no acknowledgement to the scheme’s temporary nature. Bailey used physical geography to create a visible and less permeable boundary line further suggesting he had a permanent settlement in mind."


2. Sir Henry Robinson (Vice-President of the Irish Local Government Board)



"By far the most thorough of the three exclusion schemes was that devised by Sir Henry Robinson. In drawing his boundary line, Robinson took local government boundaries as his operational unit: a method his Undersecretary would later dismiss as unworkable. Robinson had drawn up the local authority areas for the Local Government Act in 1898 and appears to have been proud of the administrative subunits he had designed at that time.

The Robinson scheme proposed the exclusion of 26.85 percent of the population of Ireland and 28.58 percent of Ireland’s land by valuation. Robinson’s exclusion zone was two-thirds Protestant and one-third Catholic. Of the three, Robinson’s boundary line was the only one which explicitly considered infrastructure like road and rail connections."

3. Sir James Dougherty (Undersecretary to the The Chief Secretary for Ireland)


"The third and final scheme to be submitted was that of Undersecretary Dougherty, the highest-ranking civil servant in Ireland and, as a native of Garvagh in the east of Co Derry, the only Ulsterman among the three men consulted. Dougherty first wrote on May 7th explaining that it would be “a difficult, if not impossible job to construct these pens” and that “the policy of exclusion, whatever plan may be adopted, bristles with difficulties and … I do not see how they are to be surmounted.”

Only with the inauguration of the Irish Free State in December 1922 did the boundary line officially become an international border. Its form remained fluid until the collapse of the Boundary Commission three years later, confirming Dougherty’s 1914 line as the Border ever since."

Full article: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/plotting-partition-the-other-border-options-that-might-have-changed-irish-history-1.4556046

Shedite27 wrote: »

I assume counties existed as they do back then, bizzare to think that there was a proposal to split Donegal and Down.

Little tangent, but when were counties formed/established? Any maps of any breakdown of more/less thant 32 counties?

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

As it happens, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 that created partition did use the traditional counties to define Northern Ireland, and by default “Southern Ireland”

“Northern Ireland shall consist of the parliamentary counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone, and the parliamentary boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry, and Southern Ireland shall consist of so much of Ireland as is not comprised within the said parliamentary counties and boroughs.”

And this remained in 1922 with the creation of the Free State.

Shedite27 wrote: »

I assume counties existed as they do back then, bizzare to think that there was a proposal to split Donegal and Down.

JupiterKid wrote: »

Tallaght in 1975/76, part of the OSI 10th Popular Edition Dublin Street map.

Apologies for the quality as I took this from an original folded map with sellotape to protect the creases. Part of my extensive map collection.





As you can see, large scale housing development has already taken place, largely around the Bolbrook/Oldbawn area, Springfield, Belgard Heights, Firhouse and the first phases of the huge Kilnamanagh estate. Cookstown industrial estate pretty much complete. No bypass as of yet.

Charles Babbage wrote: »

They decided they wanted Derry, not sure on what basis,

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

it is the gironde estuary. What am I missing?

BonnieSituation wrote: »

That's terrifyingly large.