The Irish Ordnance Survey's Six Inches to One Mile Map of Ireland: Anglicization and Otherness

Abstract

By examining the power maps and language have over a nation this research reveals a correlation between the creation of the 1846 Six Inches to One Mile Maps of Ireland and the decline of the Gaelic language at the expense of the English language. By examining Irish Ordnance Survey maps, Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, and other documents from the Irish Ordnance Survey while the Six Inches to One Mile Maps of Ireland this thesis demonstrates that the Six Inches to One Mile Maps of Ireland was a tool of imperialism used by Great Britain to culturally assimilate Ireland by changing the Gaelic place names of towns in Ireland to a new Anglicized form and promoting the use of English in Ireland.