Ordnance Survey Ireland (1)Critiques

This is Dublin city and Environs traditional map form as opposed to the coiled booklet map of Dublin.

This is the booklet with coils.

Scale 1:63,360 (1 to one mile)

Scale 1:126,720 (1/2 to one mile)

Scale 1:126,720 (1/2 to one mile)

Scale 1:126,720 (1/2 to one mile)

Scale 1:126,720 (1/2 to one mile)

Scale 1:126,720 (1/2 to one mile)

Scale 1:126,720 (1/2 to one mile)

Scale 1:126,720 (1/2 to one mile)

Scale 1:25,000

Scale 1:250000

Scale 1:7000

Scale 1:50000

Scale 1:50000

Scale 1:50000

Scale 1:50000

Scale 1:1200In prep. for TEI Council meeting in Galway.

Scale 1:50000

Scale 1:20000 With Dublin index to streets (booklet)

Scale 1:50000

Scale 1:50000

Scale 1:250000

Ah, the city map. Opening one up declares you, loudly, as a tourist. What approach to take? Personally, I favour selecting the area one is going to visit that day, folding and back-folding the map in question until it has that sector of the city uppermost and then concealing the folded map in the back pocket, so that it can be whipped out and studied furtively. That way, it’s only the cameras and brightly coloured cagool that gives you away as a tourist.

In Dublin though, this doesn’t matter. To stand out as a tourist in Dublin, a city where long crocodiles of European schoolchildren mill along the pavement, all sporting identical orange backpacks and conversing at a volume normally only encountered at a rock concert or sonic weapons research facility, a city where people walk around looking at the architecture so that their heads are currently bent up at a seventy degree angle, meaning they are constantly bumping into crocodiles of European schoolchildren, a city where every second person has a carrier bag from the Guinness shop – to look like a tourist in this city, you’d have to stand with your map fully unfurled, simultaneously taking pictures of yourself wearing a bright green hat and drinking a Guinness.

The only problem with unfurling a map in Dublin is that, given the weather, it’s not unlike hoisting the topgallants during a typhoon

The true test of the clarity of any map is its ability to aid navigation under stressful conditions. An extreme example of this is using your red torch to illuminate your strategic map while whispering coordinates for the airstrike into a tiny microphone with the intent of giving some naughty men with AK47s a very short-lived surprise. Alternatively, you could spill out of an Italian restaurant into a rainy Dublin night and find yourself having to navigate back to your hotel, which you have only visited once, in the dry daylight, in the dark and in the rain. Which is horizontal.

Although I used this map as a pedestrian, for the driver, the most important thing on this map are those little arrows marking out the direction of Dublin’s one-way system. Dublin is small for a capital city but they have managed to fit about seventeen million miles worth of road into a small area by the simple process of inventing a one-way system that would appear to fold space. Another reason why folding the map is so useful.

Navigating in Dublin with this map is actually a breeze (rather than a gale). The scale is large and the print is easy to read, even when it’s wet and dark. The map withstood lots of folding and refolding and even a couple of unfurlings. There are splotches of colour, which were useful for locating pedestrianised areas or the river (once you know where the Liffy, Temple Bar and Grafton Street is, you can orientate yourself pretty well), while prominent buildings are marked out in red.

It’s even fairly east to work out how long it’s going to take to get from where you are to where you want to be, which is good for making that all important taxi or walk it decision. It’s always best to walk it in Dublin of course, there’s just so much to see and so many streets and side streets to explore. If you’re in a taxi it’s hard to hear the enticing music coming from the bar with the steamed up windows suggesting a fug or warmth within. Luckily the scale of the map means that you could probably find the bar again the next night – if you haven’t disgraced yourself and they’ll still serve you, or worse still, they’ve added a photo of you to their wall of fame and shame and shameful fame.

It has to be said that the city lends itself to navigation. They love their street signs – the fact that they are all in English and Gaelic means that they are on every street corner – trying to protect a national language means that they are passionate about labelling, although the A to Z streetfinder was in English, well, you are a tourist after all.

Essential.

A map has three lives. Actually, to be more accurate, there are three ages to the life of a map. At least.

The first age is before the journey – the planning stages. Now, you can talk about a journey as much as you like, either to your mates down the pub or speculatively with your significant other whom you’re trying to entice away for a week of naughtiness under canvas but, once you’ve invested in a map, that’s commitment. Is there anything more exciting than a map spread across a table? It may be the family dining table, with a map of the holiday spread out and the excited family gathered at the edges. Even more excitingly, it may be over a pub table with a group of mates who were sceptical about the prospect of a cycling tour but, through the simple application of several pints of lager and a map clearly showing just how many public houses there are along the route, are now straining at the break blocks to get underway.

Pub tables are simply more exciting because ideas generated by alcohol and sustained by alcohol are such fun. Oddly, from places of relaxation where the diet is based around beer, pork scratchings and corn based snacks, many athletic holidays are planned – cycling round Ireland, walking the Pennine Way, mountaineering in Spain. All sound possible through the simple addition of beer.

It all connects us to that time in the past when heroic men, probably buoyed up by an explosive mixture of brandy, cigars and rampant imperialism, spread a map, largely blank in the middle, across the billiards table of their club and decided to see what was at the centre of that blank space. With luck, that large blank space contained a large mineral deposit and some gullible natives who didn’t realise the true value of a copper mine. Possibly even a mountain that one could name after an aunt, thus securing that all-important inheritance or at least the best of the bone china.

The second age of the map is actual use. This is where the map is folded back and forth, forth and back. Sometimes if you are lucky you will get the concertina folds the right way round and the thing will fold away to its original size and not resemble a crumple the size of a beach ball, but don’t worry if you don’t. During the campaigning stage a map can be expected to pick up the following: raindrops, snowmelt, surf, rapid, tears, tears, animal prints, scorch marks, beer glass rings, wine glass rings (red and white), swatted insect smears, sun tan lotion greasy fingerprints, a tyre track, sand (beach), sand (storm) and probably at least one good soaking from that river you were sure was fordable.

The third age is as a reference tool. Used to get the spelling right when labelling your photographs, or to geotag your photographs, or to frame what’s left of it as a memento of your journey (‘look, you can see where the bullet passed through’), after you’ve festooned it with trail marks, red lines, comments, crosses, asterisks and many non-official markings (a pint with three stars being a favourite).

The Ireland touring map was everything you could want from a map, clear, robust and largely weatherproof – ideal for Ireland where unfurling a large piece of paper on the wild Atlantic coast can be something of a challenge of coordination and perception – trying to find the road to Killarney while the map thrashes in the wind like a salmon at the end of the line is something of an art. Trying to consult it in the open was not unlike unfurling a spinnaker and it’s a testament to the quality of the paper that it’s still more paper than selotape.

My one criticism is that it was a bit light on specific detail. A stone circle that we visited wasn’t marked on it, for instance. However, I concede that, this being Ireland, marking stone circles on it would probably leave little room for anything else.

And I even discovered the fourth age of a map – places not visited…at least not yet.