Irish Geography

Profiling efforts to establish voluntary stewardship in a river catchment

Donna Weiner — 2024-09-10

River water quality in Ireland is in decline. The Maigue River in County Limerick exemplifies this decline with degrading chemical and ecological water quality. The most significant pressures are agriculture, and to a lesser extent, hydromorphology, urban and domestic wastewater systems. Because human activity is a main source of pressure on riverine systems and natural habitats, part of the solution rests in increasing local community interest, involvement, and cooperation in water and catchment management initiatives. This study profiles efforts made to foster engagement with residents of the Maigue River catchment. A devastating pollution event precipitated the formation of a community water group that provided initiatives to increase public involvement in events and projects focusing on river water quality and biodiversity. Most of the initiatives would not have been possible without the individual attributes of local participants, an organisational structure (Maigue Rivers Trust), and champion (Project Officer), and supporting funds, training, and resources. These bottom-up efforts demonstrate that voluntary engagement supported by core funding helped further the public participation aims of conservation legislation (Water Framework Directive and River Basin Management Plans) and expanded catchment stewardship. However, future sustainability, with meaningful improvements in water quality, requires time, a functioning structure, and adequate resources, as part of a coherent integrated catchment management approach, if trusting relationships with local communities are to be developed and maintained.

Perceptions of sustainability in Ireland’s small villages during immigration times

Ricard Moren — 2024-09-10

This paper approaches aspects of population change in small villages of rural Ireland. Along these pages, this paper contributes to improve the geographic knowledge about the perception of social, economic, and environmental dimensions of rural sustainability. This paper is mainly based on statistical, documental, and cartographical work as well as data collected during fieldwork, focusing on small villages of Cavan and Leitrim, where semi-structured interviews with various informants were conducted. Thus, this paper contributes to give voice both to rural immigrants and to locally born inhabitants. Among results of the qualitative analysis, some challenges for sustainability can be interpreted as (relatively) less entangled than others. For instance, prejudice or xenophobia are more clearly linked to the social dimension of sustainability (but can have an impact on the ability to attract foreign workers), while access to credit and support for rural business development are more clearly linked to the economic dimension (but have a social impact due to the scarcity/lack of jobs available or the low quality jobs on offer), and environmental education, recycling and waste management are more clearly linked to the environmental dimension (but there will be new job opportunities if more waste management policies are implemented).

The Cut Benchmarks at Armagh Observatory: Marking Two Hundred Years of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland

Mark Edward Bailey — 2024-11-04

We present images and GPS coordinates for the three surviving Ordnance Survey (OS) benchmarks (OSBMs) in the grounds of the Armagh Observatory. One, inscribed near the base of the south-east face of the Troughton dome has become difficult to find owing to spalling of the stonework on which it is formed. Unless efforts are made to secure its preservation there is a risk that it may soon be lost entirely. The second is found near the base of the western of the two gate posts at the main entrance to the Observatory demesne close to the Gate Lodge. The third, which until recently had lain unseen for at least a generation, is shown on OS maps dating from approximately 1860. It was rediscovered by us in November 2021 close to the foot of the surviving western gate pillar of the entrance to the Observatory’s original coach house and stables, near the footpath leading downhill from the Observatory to what is now the Planetarium. A fourth OSBM, originally near the main entrance to what is now the Planetarium was lost during construction of the Planetarium in the mid-1960s.

A note on journey times from Dublin as an indicator of changing regional relationships in Ireland – some long-term and some short- term perspectives

Arnold Horner — 2024-11-04

The changing long-term and short-term influence of Dublin is reviewed in relation to journey time information which can be extracted from timetables for early nineteenth-century mail coaches and for later train and bus services. Travel times from Dublin to some sixteen places across Ireland are examined to demonstrate the expanding and intensifying influence of the Dublin city-region. In 2024 journey speeds to these sixteen places were on average between six and seven times faster than in the mail coach era. At least in relation to public transport, a degree of time-space convergence is evident in some of the fastest travel speeds being to the larger places within the state. However, the emergence of a radial motorway system has meant that, with the exception of travel to parts of the north-west, contrasts in journey speeds are relatively muted.