TB

I thought this afternoon that it was time to visit the new cushions at TB, following my visit of about a week ago, noticed at reference 1. And I am happy to report that they are a lot more comfortable than they look, certainly a lot more comfortable than the wooden picnic tables, which are apt to wobble and come without backs. Very pleasant, sat in the shade on a warm afternoon.

Home to take a look at Sheet 14 of the Discoverer Series from Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland, something like our own Landranger Maps, people with whom I once had some dealings, perhaps forty years ago now. I was rather surprised to find that the town of Kells, of the Book of Kells of the library of Trinity College in Dublin, was actually in Northern Ireland, maybe ten miles north of Antrim.

Suspicious, I checked to find that there are no fewer than three towns of this name on the island, this one in County Antrim, the real one in County Meath in the middle and another one in County Kilkenny to the south east, to the north of Waterford. All three places were ecclesiastical in their day, but it is the Meath one which produced the Book of Kells. All this by hand, as Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland does not seen to have an online offering in the way of our Ordnance Survey and would not, in any case extend to the south. Maybe the map people in Dublin do an all-Ireland offering, but I have yet to check that particular point.

Along the way I find that St. Columba, who took our Lord to Scotland, came from what is now County Donegal, the (wet & windy) bit of northern Ireland which is not in our Northern Ireland. At a time when the western isles of Scotland were united with the north eastern corner of Northern Ireland in the kingdom of Dál Riata. A place which thrived for a time, but ended up merging with Alba, all mixed up in turn with the king that we know as Macbeth. A king who was very much a man of his times, not the man portrayed by Shakespeare at all, although he was killed in battle with an army that came up from the south.

Not altogether clear why it was found necessary to celebrate the 1400th anniversary of St. Columba's death. Will they be doing it every hundred years? The stations of the cross, as it were.

But it does seem that his name is properly Colm Cille, from which various shortened forms are used as first names to this day.

PS: later: results of Ordnance Survey checks below. All a bit messy. Gmaps might not be able to offer the kind of maps that the Ordnance Surveys do, but they what they do have has the merit of uniformity.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/05/beef-one.html.

Reference 2: Hearthlands: A memoir of the White City housing estate in Belfast - Marianne Elliott - 2017. The source of the present interest in Ireland.

Reference 3: https://osmaps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/. Covers England, Wales, Scotland, the Isle of Wight, the Isles of Scilly and the Scottish islands, including the remote islands of St. Kilda. But not the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands. Good quality, cheap, online offering. Sample above.

Reference 4: https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/campaigns/ordnance-survey-of-northern-ireland. Covers Northern Ireland. I failed to find an online offering, apart from a shop.

Reference 5: https://www.osi.ie/. Appears to cover the whole of Ireland, although it seems unlikely that the coverage will be uniform. Once again, I failed to find an online offering, apart from a shop.