Townland, Parish, Barony mapping

I'm not sure if this is the correct area for this post, please move or delete as appropriate.

I started a townland project in my area a few years ago and it has seen several 'attempts' at how to edit, display and manage the data.  The first problem was updating the data as over time people submit new information and question data already published. I found that the only solution was a content management system and after trying numerous applications found that the wikipedia software was the best solution as it offers multiple users to create and edit content and version management to roll back a page in the event of spam or mistakes.  Townland pages can also have a 'discussions' page where people can discuss topics, without committing it to the main page.  I found there can be huge differences in the interpretation of the meaning of each townland.

Early on I found that mapping was an important part of the project.  Initially I used Google maps as they seemed to offer the best solution, but I was wrong.  The quality and accuracy of Googles maps is very poor and they have a lot of errors, especially on the location of townlands!  I became involved with a 'crowd sourced' open mapping solution called OpenStreetMaps (www.osm.org).  There are many types of people involved with OSM, programmers, mappers, historians etc each with their unique and focused area of expertises!  One guy is interested in mapping the national power grid which is possible with OSM !!  My interest is townlands and mapping them as accurately as I can.  Up until recently that involved walking around the townland with a GPS receiver, which was a very painful experience!!  But a couple of weeks ago Bing, under a special license, allowed OSM to use its high resolution imagery to map features.   This has led to an explosion of mapping in Ireland!!  If there is anyone on this list interested in help with this please do let me know.  We have a chat room located here - http://client00.chat.mibbit.com/?server=irc.oftc.net&channel=%23osm-ie and the community are very friendly and helpful.

Sorry for blabbing on, so to the point. I believe that irelandxo.com should use the OSM maps.  The advantages are huge and will get better in time.  When a townland is mapped it is given a number, which I can then use to identify it.  For example, the community group I'm part of is based around the Killyfole area.  I can easily show you this by showing you this link - http://www.openstreetmap.org/?relation=1606367  Or I can show you my Parish (Clones) - http://www.openstreetmap.org/?relation=2098190  Because the map is community managed I can make changes to it and refer to places I want to.  Like the location of an old school which is in ruins, standing or mass stones.  Heres an example - http://www.openstreetmap.org/?node=1315977884

Because the information is stored in a database, the map data can be queried. Rory McCann one of our community mappers who is also a very talented programmer, used OSM data to solve a question posed by Joyce's Leopold Bloom of how to walk across Dublin without passing a pub.  The article is here - http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0616/jamesjoyce.html  He can also work with OSM townland data and has put up a example of how it can work.  Unfortunately, we have only one county full mapped at present :(  But here is an example of what can be done - http://www.celtic-knot-creator.com/townland/carlow/  All the data is pulled from OSM on a daily bases and lists all the Baronies, Parishes and townlands in Carlow.  If you click on the parish it will take you to a page listing all the townlands in that Parish and shows a map of it below.  If you click on the townland, it takes you to a page about the townland, with a map, some real time statistics and neighbouring townlands.  As new townlands are added the page will update to include them.  Currenly I am mapping townlands in Fermanagh and have only 396 completed so far thats 12% of the area in Fermanagh.

Another advantage to using OSM is that we can display the map in Irish.  Heres an example of Dublin displayed with the Irish name layer switched on, http://maps.openstreetmap.ie/?zoom=12&lat=53.32485&lon=-6.27818&layers=…