Ordnance Survey Ireland

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Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSI; Irish: Suirbhéireacht Ordanáis na hÉireann) is the mapping agency in the Republic of Ireland.

Together with the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland, it is the post-1922 successor to the Irish division of the United Kingdom Ordnance Survey. The Irish Survey was established in 1824, along similar lines to the Ordnance Survey in Great Britain, to provide a highly detailed (1:10560, 6 inches to 1 mile) survey of the whole of the island of Ireland, a key element in the process of equalising local taxation.

From 1825-46, teams of surveyors, led by officers of the Royal Engineers and men from the ranks of the Royal Sappers and Miners, traversed Ireland, thereby creating a unique record of a landscape undergoing rapid transformation. These beautiful 6" maps portrayed the country in a degree of detail never attempted before. Both the maps and surveying were executed to a very high degree of engineering excellence.

The Engineer officers in charge of the operation were Lt-Colonel Thomas Colby and Lieut Thomas Larcom. They were assisted by George Petrie, who headed up the Survey's Topographical Department which employed the likes of John O'Donovan and Eugene O'Curry in scholarly research into place-names.

This "mapping scheme" provided numerous opportunities for employment to the native Irish people, both as skilled/semi-skilled fieldwork labourers and as clerks in the subsidiary Memoir project that was designed both to illustrate and complement the maps by providing hard data on the social and productive worth of the country.

The total cost of the Irish Survey was £860,000.