Ordnance Survey Memoirs

When Ireland was first mapped by the Ordnance Survey a Memoir was written between 1821 and 1840 on each parish, starting at the north coast but, by the time the Survey reached the southern part of Ulster, the Memoirs were discontinued. The best of the Memoirs paint an extraordinarily detailed picture of life in those parishes before the Great Famine.  Not only do they cover the topography of the parish and descriptions of the principal features and buildings but they also describe many aspects of the lives of the inhabitants, such as health, education, housing, food, dress, amusements and customs, thereby providing genealogists with much background information for writing an informative and interesting family history.  As will be seen by the number of parishes and towns treated in each volume, the coverage varies considerably from parish to parish, with those in Cos Londonderry and Antrim being particularly well described.  Many individuals are named and perhaps the most complete description is that of Coagh in Co Tyrone, in Volume 20 – it names most of the households there with details of their farming stock.

The following table shows which volume contains which parishes and towns; places followed by a cross, +, are mentioned in two volumes as they cross county boundaries.