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The Antiquities
of County Clare
Ordnance Survey Letters, 1839
by John O'Donovan & Eugene Curry
North Munster Antiquarian Journal,
Volume 44, 2004
Maureen Comber (ed.), John O’Donovan
and Eugene O’Curry, The Antiquities of County Clare: Ordnance Survey
Letters 1839, CLASP Press, Ennis, 2003, vi + 323 pp. ISBN 1 900545
15 2. Price €21. Maureen Comber (ed.), T.J. Westropp, Folklore
of Clare, CLASP Press, Ennis, 2003, iv + 130 pp. ISBN 1 900545
16 0. Price €12.
The Ordnance Survey began in 1825 when
military engineers were given the task of mapping the entire country at
the scale of six inches to one statute mile. This was primarily to establish
the exact boundaries of townlands, the smallest Irish administrative divisions
which had long been in use for public and private transactions but which
had never been properly delineated. This was seen as necessary then to
establish a basis for valuation of land which in turn would be used for
a new system of taxation. As part of the survey, attention was to be given
to placenames and antiquities. The men sent out to conduct this fieldwork,
by research, observation and interview transmitted their work back to
the Dublin headquarters by letter and it is these invaluable documents
that are reproduced in this volume. The letters are organised on a parish
basis and the basic format is a description of its boundaries, discussion
of names and description of all antiquities, particularly churches, castles,
graveyards and holy wells. There are also fascinating insights into the
marathon work undertaken by O’Curry and O’Donovan and the
difficulties and privations which they faced.
This edition of the letters is based
on a typescript produced in 1928 by Rev. Michael O’Flanagan of Bray.
It was edited and indexed by Maureen Comber and first published in hardback
in 1997. The availability of the work of these remarkable men in a paperback
version to the wider public provides both enjoyable reading and a valuable
research tool for anyone interested in local history research for County
Clare. Clasp Press has also produced a paperback version of the articles
on Irish folklore first published by Thomas Johnson Westropp in the journal
of the English Folklore Society 1910-13 which they issued in hardback
in 2000. This was reviewed in NMAJ, 41, 2001.
Mary Ryan.
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