Ireland Parish Maps and Outlines

WORKING NOTES FOR OUR DRUPAL 7 IMPLEMENTATION
(Drupal 8/9 implementation will be different)

Summary of Progress

Ireland Parish maps based on available high quality Openstreetmap data have now been produced for most counties and parishes in Ireland.

Six counties are still to do (Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick, Meath, Tipperary, and Wexford - currently there is no data for Londonderry, or for Down, either for parishes or townlands, whilst Laois seems incomplete. In all that’s still about 1000 parishes to go.  (David Lindley is currently preparing suitable parish maps for County Down.)

Quite a few differences between the GENUKI  and Openstreetmap parish names and those in the Townlands.ie csv file, which will need to be resolved at some time. Also quite a few parishes are split according to their county and/or barony affiliation and should probably somehow be recombined (that will have to be a later job for an expert maintainer). (In short the GENUKI and Openstreetmap presentation and mapping criteria differ significantly.)

A significant number of parishes have multiple detached portions.

For Ireland the starting point and the source for all the names has been Sean Ruad https://thecore.com/seanruad/ in which a few mistakes have been found over the years.

 

For now, the existing (GENUKI) gazetteer locations have been retained, the "parish location lat/lon" contained in the csv file has neither been used, nor checked for validity.

Ireland Strays and Incomplete Maps

A number of parishes in the above counties are yet to be completed - due to confusion over multiple names, locations, etc. Typically the problem parishes have a numeral as the last character of the URL contained in the csv file. An approximate list is:

Laois *

Kildare *
Nurney
Tully
Kerdiffstown
Rathangan
Kilcullen

Dublin *
Cloghran
Palmerstown
St Georges (Dublin St Georges)
Malahide
Rathcoole
Clondalkin
St Donough
St Judes (Dublin St Judes)

Leitrim *
Killancummery
Mohill
Rossinver

Fermanagh *
Belleek
Mintiagles/Barr of Inch (not a parish)
Iniskeel, Inishkeel, Inniskeel

Cavan *
Killaugh

Roscommon *
Roscommon (2)
KIllukin (2)
Taghmaconnell (
Lissonalfy (
Buntin (
Kilmore (
Kiltoon (
Kiltullagh (
Ballintober (
Cloonfinlought (
Dysart (
Killunmood (
Kilgetin (
Cloontiskert (

Ternonbarry (

Kilteevan
Kilkeevin/Kilkeevan
Dunamon
Desertcat (2)
Doncarvey
Tullyniskan
Lissan
Cappagh
Derryloran
Drumragh
Tenonmuguish

Mayo *
Kilcommon (2)
Kilcoleman (2)
Initurk
Annagh
Dysert (2)

Armagh *
"portions"

Sligo *
cross-county parishes

Observations

GENUKI policy is (or at least was) to have a single Gazetteer entry where the civil parish is named after a settlement and/or townland within it. It has been traditional to use the centre of the settlement/townland, rather than the geographical centre of the civil parish; as to do otherwise creates a very obvious anomaly (especially in the case of parishes with multiple detached parts).  In addition, there are cases where the townland of  e.g. "Ballywotsit" isn’t actually in the townland of "Ballywotsit"

As to County Down, for the civil parishes done so far, the boundaries which Openstreetmap shows (i.e. for those townlands that form the perimeter of the parishes) have proved to be – mostly -  consistent with those shown on the online old 6” OS Maps.  However,  having plotted the boundaries of Drumbo & Drumbeg civil parishes to align with ‘colour’ version of the 6” OS maps (1837-1842), it can be seen that www.townlands.ie uses the  later boundaries which are actually referred to in Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837): “Twelve townlands of the ancient parish [of Drumbo] having been lately annexed to Drumbeg...”.   We therefore need to decide which outline to use.

 

Ireland Parish Boundaries

Note: The procedure describes below takes much longer to read (and write) than it takes to execute in practice.

Suitable mapping geodata for Ireland is available at https://www.townlands.ie/page/download/, for a variety of features and in a variety of mapping formats, including KML and CSV.

The data can be downloaded from townlands.ie in various formats. The link above provides full details on the structure of this data. 

Type of Data	Shapefile	GeoJSON	KML	CSV	no-geom CSV
Townlands	download shapefile	download GeoJSON	download KML	download CSV	download no-geom CSV
Electoral Divisions	download shapefile	download GeoJSON	download KML	download CSV	download no-geom CSV
Civil Parishes	download shapefile	download GeoJSON	download KML	download CSV	download no-geom CSV
Baronies	download shapefile	download GeoJSON	download KML	download CSV	download no-geom CSV
Counties	download shapefile	download GeoJSON	download KML	download CSV	download no-geom CSV
Provinces

The most useful file is the CSV one, of which there are two options, a normal ("geom") version, and a "no-geom" version. The normal CSV file has an additional column of a WKT data string representation of this area.

The "no-geom" CSV file does not have this, and has no geometry shape data at all (it only has the LATITUDE and LONGITUDE fields). This file is suitable to use for some analysis on the data in a spreadsheet programme. Some (most) spreadsheets have trouble with the long WKT field in the normal ("geom") CSV version, due to the field length exceeding the cell character limit. The files can however be opened in a suitable text editor.

This data all requires some "one-time" pre-processing before use in GENUKI. This and subsequent manipulation can be done in a basic text editor such as Windows Notepad, or TextEdit in MacOS (as long as it is configured to operate in basic "Notepad" mode), athough an extended editor such as Notepad++ (Windows) or BBEdit (MacOS) is required to make what may be described as one of the non-essential "convenience" edits. For some reason, BBEdit is unable to make one of the global (find-and-replace) edits required, although it can make the changes manually on an individual (per item) basis.

• Unzip the file obtained above containing the CSV data.
• Open the civil parish CSV file in a suitable text editor, as described above.
• The data is of the form
  • A HEADER ROW describing the data structure and format : WKT String; blah, blah, blah, ......., Latitude, Longitude (the POINT location of the feature, which for later use the order needs to be reversed), and followed by a final term that can be ignored.
  • ROWS containing the relevant location data, one row per location (may be wrapped by the text editor). Each row begins with "POLYGON or "MULTIPOLYGON (sic).
• The "civil-parishes" CSV contains data for all of Ireland, except for County Down, for which any such data is difficult to find.

Close the file.

Editor's Note : in the Drupal 8/9 implementation the following procedures may well be quite different, as we may have to use GeoJSON rather than WKT.
 

Pre-processing the WKT Data for Ireland

Open the CSV file in suitable text editor, as described above. At this point it may be considered worth saving it as a TXT file for more convenience in future use.

Make the following global changes to the text, using "Find and Replace". 

• For convenience (but not essential) insert a new blank line to separate each data entry. This can be done in Notepad++ and BBedit using extended mode or grep edit "\nTextToBeReplaced", to change "MULTIPOLYGON and "POLYGON to insert a new blank line above each. (Ensure the initial quotation mark " is retained)
• Change "MULTIPOLYGON to "POLYGON (including the opening quotation mark ").
• Change "POLYGON to "GEOMETRYCOLLECTION (MARKER, POLYGON "- there should be one space left between POLYGON and the the succeeding two opening brackets ((. Include the opening quotation mark  ".
• Change the multipolygon separator ")),((" to ")), POLYGON ((" exactly as written here, including spaces. (BBEdit may be unable to make this specific global (find-and-replace) edit, although it can make the changes manually on an individual (per item) basis).
• Change the numerisc longitude entry from ",-" to ", -". (Provides correct WKT formatting, and all Ireland entries are west of Greenwich.)
• Ensure that all occurrences of three opening brackets "(((" are amended to two opening brackets "((".
• Ensure that all occurrences of four closing brackets "))))" are amended to three closing brackets ")))". **
   

** Any remaining instances of "))))" may give a convenient warning that a MULTIPOLYGON is involved, and that detached portions will appear on the resultant map. If so, just copy the first three ")))",  rather than all four "))))" to ensure that the WKT text is correct and viable within GENUKI.

As mentioned earlier, this only has to be done once. The file is now ready for use to create new parish outlines.

Create an outline for a parish or other feature in Ireland (do not prepare townland or other feature boundaries at this time, create parish outlines only; such other features are for Drupal 8/9 only).

Once the basic global pre-processing described has been done, open the civil parishes CSV or TXT file for Ireland Parishes.

• Find the data for a parish by searching for (e.g.) ",Antrim" (with the comma but without the quotation marks), to find an entry for the County of Antrim. Note the principal name of the place, a little to the left of the county name. (The text source is not arranged by county.)
• Copy the WKT geodata starting with "GEOMETRYCOLLECTION (MARKER, POLYGON" and ending with the final three closing brackets ")))". Paste this into a new text file and save with a name such as "CCCParishName".*
• In GENUKI, open the relevant parish page, then click the "Nearby Places" tab. On the page which opens, find the marker for the parish, and click to open it for edit.
• In the gazetteer editor view, select the marker location e.g. "POINT (longitude coordinate latitude coordinate)", and copy.
• Return to the open text file and paste this entry over the text "MARKER", then save the file. (The POINT location text should appear preceded by an opening round bracket and followed immediately by a comma, this then followed by a space and the word POLYGON, itself followed by a space before the opening brackets preceding the lat/lon coordinate set.)
• Click "Select All", then click "Copy" to copy the complete WKT string.
• Return to the gazetteer edit screen and paste the wicket string over the existing "POINT (longitude coordinate latitude coordinate)" text, then click Replace.* Then click Save to save the new gazetteer entry.
• For an entry consisting of only a single polygon, the completed WKT text string should look similar to the example shown above under "Using KML".
• For an entry consisting of multiple polygons, the completed WKT text string should look similar to the example shown above under "Using KML" , but will also contain the polygon separator ")), POLYGON ((" at appropriate points.
• If the original marker location is considered to be inaccurate, it can be replaced by the latitude/longitude coordinates contained as the third and second last entries of the data source (although they will need to be used in reverse in order, to be longitude/latitude).
• Obviously all temporary parish outline text files should be closed once no longer needed. Whether they are retained for possible future use is a decision for the individual maintainers.
• Some parishes contain detached portions (multiple polygons) for which there do not seem to be corresponding polygon holes in the other parishes affected. Requires attention.

Repeat all the above as necessary to create polygons for other parishes. Finally open the gazetteer-by-county view and click the "bounds" link near the appropriate county name. A view should appear showing the relevant parish outlines.

* Editor's Note : Experience has shown that is quickest and most effective just to create the appropriate WKT text within a new temporary text file, then "Select All", "Copy", and "Paste" into the appropriate gazetteer entry. Then discard (close) the temporary text file without saving just before starting on creation of the next entry (for which a new temporary text file will be created). In this way a good working rhythm can be developed, and the creation of possibly undesirable clutter can be avoided.

Ireland Townland Boundaries

It is considered unlikely that we will introduce townland boundaries in Drupal 8/9. Townland boundaries are already identified in the underlying Openstreetmap maps.