Restriction lift date: 2026-11-01
Charting and mapping the Irish coast, c.1200-1900
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Date
2025-01-01
Authors
O'Flanagan, Patrick
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Routledge
Published Version
Abstract
The study of Ireland’s maritime charts has always been the poor relation of works focused upon the historical cartography of the same island. This piece aims to alert the reader to the wide range of charts available for the understanding, especially of its coastal zones and how chart-makers provided over time increasingly accurate images of the shape of the island’s coast with the appearance of more detailed regional and local images. Charts are essentially coastal maps, and several key phases of chart-making can be recognised, beginning with images of the entire island represented on Portolans, many of which are now readily accessible to a wide public in a series of recent publications. More recently, charts produced or sponsored by institutions reveal detailed impressions of the human and physical geography of our coasts. Commercial interests dominated and sustained earlier chart makers; more recently, institutions, such as the British Admiralty, municipal interests and the Ordinance Survey, have taken leading roles here.
Description
Keywords
Map , Irish coast , 1200-1900 , [HumanEnvironment]
Citation
O'Flanagan, P 2025, Charting and mapping the Irish coast, c.1200-1900. in K Morgan (ed.), The Routledge History of the Modern Maritime World since 1500. Routledge, pp. 460-474. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003606918-29