Twitter geolocation tags mapped onto Irish roads to show volume of traffic.

Got this from the guardian. It does as it says. Its not a map of where people are using twitter but rather of where twitter is used the most when on the road system. Cant see anything of real interest for Irish people only that the busiest road on the Island would appear to the boat leaving Belfast for Scotland! Or though you could argue that people have more time for tweeting on the ferry. The M7/M8 to cork has a blank spot somewhere after Newbridge with everyone turning off the road to cork to go to Carlow. thus Portlaoise to Clonmel is pretty vacant. 

Irish civil war in 1922. Division of the island into republican and free-state areas.

So Dongeal Clare, Laois, Westmeath, Meath, Cavan, Monaghan and parts of other counties were Free-State territories. This is I did not know. To be honest im quite surprised by the amount of territory that the Republicans had. I assumed it was more heavy towards the Free-Staters. I can not remember where i found this map.

Clans and their hereditary links at the time of Henry 8th

I really have no clue what to say here other than click on it and have fun. This is supposedly based on the castles of the various clans around the country. With the colours linked to the origin of the clan. 

Percentage of Catholics in Ireland and Northern Ireland 1926

Don't know the origin of this map saw it on Politics.ie. I'm the process of creating a series of maps using a 1% grading for the religious make up of the island with a 32 county template. The 20% grade used here is somewhat frustrating but the reality is that the percentage of protestants in the Republic was never over 10% (at least after partition) so any maps used to represent this data need a very small grade but that means a lot more shades of colours are needed which is painful to produce.

Squirrels in Ireland

My american friends are always amazed at the delight i express if i see a squirrel in Ireland; squirrels being the most plentiful and visible animal in the US. Some of you will know that there is a bit of a squirrel war going on in Ireland (and Britian I think) at the moment between those who wish to see the native Red Squirrel survive and the new arrival - The grey. My advice? Catch Kill and Eat the grey. Apparently they're tasty. 

Bees in Ireland

Judging by this it would appear that Beekeeping is mostly a leinster and Munster thing. Unless of course there is separate Northern Ireland Association? 

Railways currently (2013) and at their height (1906)

As one can see the area's around Cork and Northern Ireland are the most covered. My time in the North has had me seeing a significantly increased presence of people with an interest in trains. - no wonder. I don't know the real reasons why the railways are not as extensive as they were but I'm assuming that partition of the island was not helpful! Currently as with the roads all trains in the Republic lead to Dublin. Only one intercity route exists (has it opened yet?) that does not go to Dublin and that is the Waterford to Limerick route. Sometimes in my daydreams I imagine a world where tunnelboring technology has developed to the stage where its quick and commonplace so that one could put all roads and trains underground. Every city would have a direct line to all the other ones.. Would be cool yeah?

New Northern Ireland Councils

Middle map shows the old system.  Below is the wikipedia summary of the changes. I'm guessing that fear politics are behind the fact that belfast is not taking in parts of "natural belfast" such as forestside.

1.	Belfast City		Belfast City Council plus parts of Castlereagh, Lisburn and North Down
2.	North Down and Ards District	102,313	Ards and North Down, except for a small part of the Knocknagoney area of North Down District which was to be transferred to Belfast
3.	Antrim and Newtownabbey District	120,496	Antrim and Newtownabbey
4.	Lisburn City and Castlereagh District	83,369	Lisburn and Castlereagh, though with the transfer of "the localities of Gilnahirk, Tullycarnet, Braniel, Castlereagh, Merok, Cregagh, Wynchurch, Glencregagh and Belvoir, Collin Glen, Poleglass, Lagmore, Twinbrook, Kilwee and Dunmurry" to Belfast
5.	Newry City, Mourne and Down District	107,233	Newry and Mourne and Down together with half of Slieve Croob
6.	Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon District	124,996	Armagh City and District, Banbridge and Craigavon, though with the loss of half of Slieve Croob to Newry City and Down District
7.	Mid and East Antrim District	89,832	Ballymena, Larne, and Carrickfergus
8.	Causeway Coast and Glens District	88,654	Ballymoney, Coleraine, Limavady and Moyle
9.	Mid-Ulster District	86,591	Magherafelt, Cookstown and Dungannon and South Tyrone
10.	Derry City and Strabane District	92,593	Derry and Strabane.
11.	Fermanagh and Omagh District	74,414	Fermanagh and Omagh

Percentage of Protestants in County Cavan 2006

Got this from a crowd called the "Cavan protestant network" . I am curious to find out more about the area in the dark red that is greater than 40% so if you know anything about it please comment. The website had a few batches of stats and some commentary, one interesting thing was that they said that protestants near the border had been forced to move from their homes. This is something i have heard had happened in the north but not in the republic. I have asked Northerners about it and i have got mixed answers. All the people i asked where protestants so i have to assume that im not getting a biased answer. I feel i really need to ask a lot more people to get a better picture so i aint saying anything here this time.