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 Help & ResourcesHelp with collectionsIrish Origins collectionsAbout Dublin City 1847 Ordnance Survey Town PlansThese maps, made available by the Planning Department of Dublin Corporation, are the first detailed town plans of Dublin City to be produced by the Ordnance Survey. They are still used today, particularly by cartographers and city planners and developers. The 5-foot (60 inches to the mile) maps of Dublin City published in 1847 by the Ordnance Survey of Ireland represent the epitome of Irish cartography when the Survey was experiencing its most ambitious and creative phase under the leadership of Thomas A. Larcom (1801-79). You may find it difficult to read some text (eg house numbers) on the Dublin City plans. The file sizes of the online plans had to be reduced so that the download time would not be too excessive; that entailed reducing the quality a little. The original scanned images are of significantly better quality than those available online, and are available on the 1851 Dublin City Census CD. Click here to go to the Irish Origins Store The origins of large-scale urban maps came from the need of state property assessors, under the control of Richard Griffiths, to accurately ascertain the size of small plots of land as it had been found that 6-inch maps were unsuitable and inaccurate when expanded. The genesis of these maps of Dublin is not clear, as the original documentation has largely been destroyed; though it is possible that Larcom had no proper authorisation for their production. They superseded the 6-inch maps published for Dublin in 1836 and were followed by the 10-foot maps, which were more suitable for the town planner from the 1850s, particularly in England. The first map of the series published in 1840 is called the ‘Castle’ Map and this is no co-incidence as Larcom’s most important political allies were the Dublin Administration and this map was a highly prestigious, if expensive, product of those Civil Servants who took pride in Irish affairs. Larcom was ahead of his time in believing that the Department should actively anticipate public requirements by providing maps to suit the range of local and regional needs and not passively respond to the political vagaries of Government Departments. It was also no doubt useful to the Royal Regiment of Sappers and Miners, who conducted the survey, when they were responsible for re-fortifying Dublin Castle in 1843 in anticipation of a rebellion arising out of O’Connell’s Repeal Movement. It is therefore no surprise that the Castle was left entirely blank when the full set of town plans was published in 1847 (Sheet 21). The authorities had no wish to make this sort of security information available to potential insurgents. In the mid 1840s the Survey Department went through major changes as retrenchment, cost-cutting and the transfer of the headquarters to Southampton was responsible for a decline in the quality and quantity of Irish maps, which culminated in the sacking of Larcom in 18461. However the 5-foot Dublin maps were continued, as there was no good reason to discontinue their publication. In fact they were slightly expanded with inclusion of contour lines and water pipes from 1843 and by 1847 the thirty three maps covering the city were published. John West who had originally been a Colour Sergeant in the Royal Sappers and Miner’s Corps produced these maps using high quality copper plate engraving techniques. He was also responsible for the highly regarded Geological Survey Map of Ireland and the Railway Map of Ireland and a contemporary description stated that he ‘displayed consummate skill, neatness, rigid accuracy and beauty of both outline and topography’2. Many commentators believed that these were the best urban plans produced anywhere in Europe, ‘the beauty of which has never been surpassed’3. These maps were more than simple plans of the cityscape but a highly detailed building and street survey. The interior ground floor plans of the virtually all public buildings are provided, covering the buildings associated with regional and local Government, major Banking and other Commercial institutions, Charitable institutions, Hospitals, Schools, Police and Military Barracks, Prisons, Churches etc. The maps include street furniture, water pipes and drains, while the layout of the parks and other public spaces are particularly clear. In the private sector the maps cover the gamut from prestigious town house to the slum cottage, from the fashionable shopping street to the back street huckster. City industries are well represented with everything from markets, iron works, breweries, mills, and other commercial establishments. The maps also included details of the entire water and sewerage system throughout the city, including the locations of water pumps. From the perspective of social history these maps give a birds eye view of Dublin forty years after the Act of Union but before the major post-Famine demographic changes. Dublin had declined in the first 40 years of the 19th century from being the 2nd to the 10th city in the United Kingdom and had also missed out on the Industrial Revolution that was to have a major impact on English Urban history. While the city maintained its importance to the landed aristocracy their focus was increasingly drawn to London; meanwhile rural migration meant that an increasing number of inhabitants were to become the new urban poor. Dublin at this time has been described as 'a Georgian City frozen in penury'.4 Between 1841 and 1851 the population of the city rose by 11% as a result of the massive migration from the countryside devastated by Famine and associated land clearances. These migrants settled in anything from tumbledown cottages in obscure alleys to abandoned Georgian town houses in the north City Centre. From this period the major shift of professional and upper middle-class to the new Victorian suburbs was to gather pace. The 5-foot maps are therefore of major importance as they encapsulate the city in transition from 18th century Georgian to late 19th century Victorian Dublin. They may also be used in conjunction with Shaw’s 1850 Pictorial Street Guide to the city as they give complementary views of the building fabric of the most important streets, which include surviving examples of the ‘Dutch’ style gables, now almost completely disappeared. Before the 1840s planning in Dublin was confined to streets through the Wide-Street Commissioners. Later the developing Health bodies, created to solve the problems of sanitation, increasingly used these maps for planning, water provision and disease control after the Health Acts of 1848. These maps were also to become extremely important to Dublin Corporation for the provision of services and later slum clearances followed by the building of Housing Schemes for the Urban Working Classes. Other Public uses were the re-organisation of Municipal Boundaries from 1836 and the 1841 Census, which under Larcom’s influence included, for the first time, a systematic classification of housing and occupations. They were also essential to the Poor Law Commissioners who were able to assess needs and taxes exactly on the basis of accurate plot sizes and valuation. Estate Agents were obvious private clients and they were aided by Larcom’s rare property valuation map drawn on the index map of the series. In essence the 5-foot maps were a major Public and Private tool in the re-development of Dublin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However beyond the Planner’s utilitarian needs these maps are a visual feast that celebrate the work of the surveyor, draftsman and engraver. Bibliography
Footnotes 1. He was later to be appointed the first permanent and non-political Under Secretary of State in 1853 as his experience with the Ordnance Survey, Census Commissioners, Poor Law Commissioners and various Boundary Commissions was invaluable to the Dublin Administration. 2. Connolly, 1855, vol. ii, p. 5 3. DNB, vol. XI, Thomas A Larcom 4. Aalen, 1995, p. 282
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