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About Griffith's Survey Maps & Plans
Irish Origins subscribers can access the authentic maps images associated with Griffith's Valuation Survey of Ireland, and covering all Counties. The Ordnance Survey (OS) maps and town plans used by the team working on Griffith's Primary Valuation during 1847-1864 still exist, marked up and annotated by those working on the Primary Valuation and subsequently by Valuation Office personnel. Some of them contain notes made and signed by Richard Griffith himself. The maps used within the counties of the Republic of Ireland have all been digitised by the Valuation Office who have kindly given permission to make them available on Irish Origins. The originals, now held by the National Archives of Ireland, are not accessible by the public. Please Note: Unfortunately we do not have maps of Northern Ireland at this time (Counties: Antrim, Armagh, Londonderry, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone). Map Image Previews Speed of download The original maps are quite large (nearly a metre wide - 38 inches) and the digitised map files are correspondingly large - typically around 1 Mbyte. If you are using a dial-up connection to the Internet, a map may take a minute or two to download. For comparison, the Griffith's Valuation images are typically around 50-60 Kbytes, so a map may take about 20 times longer to download than an image of a Valuation page. Multiple copies of maps The Griffith's team used multiple copies of the relevant OS map since one map typically covers several townlands and several people could be working in the area covered by a map. So there will often be more than one copy of the OS map for the townland you are interested in. On average there are about two copies of each OS map and these are easily accessible when viewing the images. The OS maps are numbered by sheet within each county. The Sheet Number will appear at the top right hand corner of the map sheet. Plot boundaries The people working on the valuation for each townland marked up the plot boundaries for every property recorded within Griffith's Valuation. There are often multiple copies of the same map and unfortunately these have not yet been indexed to identify which one has been marked up for a particular townland. However, we estimate that in over two-thirds of the cases maps will have been marked-up. When you find the townland area on the map, you may be able to find where the actual property - maybe your ancestor's house or farm - was located. Be aware that these numbers are by no means always clear, and it can be a matter of luck if you can actually find the property you are looking for; nor are the boundaries of the townlands always easy to make out. The example map fragments below, for the townland of Brodeen (just east of the town of Tipperary), shows how the lot numbers appear. 
Just under the name "Brodeen" the area of this townland is given: 37 A(cres), 1 R(oods), 12 P(erches). This is the total area which appears in Griffith's Valuation for that townland, as can be seen from the image segments below. 
The example is for the townland of Shronell Beg, parish of Shronell, County Tipperary, you will see that the lot numbers changed considerably over the years since the Primary Valuation, as indicated by the markings and dates on the map. If you look at the Griffith's Valuation entries for Shronell Beg you will see Glebe House with the map reference (ie lot number) 11. You will see that lot 2 is very large - over 150 acres - and goes way over to the East. You will see on the map that the School House (lot number 4 - not shown clearly on the map) is adjacent to the Church. But in the Valuation tables you will see that the Church is actually in the adjacent townland of Deerpark; so the boundary between Shronell Beg and Deerpark is not obvious, and you may have to use clues from both the Valuation and the maps to be able to pin down a property you are interested in. (NB The Valuation Office also have this difficulty - so you are not alone!)
Town Plans Like the Ordnance Survey maps, the plans frequently contain annotations made by the Griffith's Valuation team and subsequently by Valuation Office personnel. The plan below shows the village of Ninemilehouse, in County Tipperary. Every house and outhouse, every plot of land is clearly shown, with the lot or street numbers used in Griffith's Valuation. So if you have identified an ancestor in this village you should be able to see exactly where they lived. 
The example below shows Clonmel prison, with the female prison comparable in size to the male part and two treadmills in the space between them. This, like most plans, was very much a "working document", as can be seen from the cracks and creases and marks made by the surveyors. 
Multiple plans For larger towns, their size may mean that several plans are needed to cover the area. Given that most plans are at the scale of 5 feet to the mile, if the town covers an area of much more than a square mile, more than one sheet will be needed. For many places there are multiple plans, usually created at different times. The majority are undated, but as far as possible the one you retrieve first will be the earliest, which will the one first used in Griffith's Valuation. Since the plans cover a wide range of dates (though all 19th century), you will be able in many cases to see the development of towns over a period of nearly 100 years; in many cases the plans are marked up by hand to show new developments. These plans are still often used by the Valuation Office today, when they need to determine whether, for example, a particular plot of land has ever been built on, even where no trace of any building remains. Copyright Copyright in the Griffith's Valuation Maps and Town Plans is held by Valuation Office Ireland. Please note the restrictions on use of copyright material in section 11 of our Terms of Service. Please Note: Unfortunately we do not have maps of Northern Ireland at this time (Counties: Antrim, Armagh, Londonderry, Down, Fermanagh, Tyrone).
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