How many cows in each county of Ireland?

From the link "

Following quota abolition, Irish dairy farmers went into expansion mode, increasing cow numbers to produce more milk.

The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) has looked at the dairy cow population and broken the numbers down county-by-county."

Deaths on the website RIP.ie in April 2020 , many new records set since its founding in 2010

Link : https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2020/0505/1136496-death-notices-ireland-coronavirus/

Irish Cheeses

Here's a new years resolution: Eat all of these. I don't know if the colourings have any significance and I don't know if the fact that N Ireland and Dublin are both highlighted but have no chesse named means anything. List of cheeses named are : Beenoskoe, Milleeris, Desmond Gubbeen, Durrus, Coolea, Ardrahan, Baylough Cheddar, St Gall, Ardsallagh, Cashel Blue, Crozier Blue, Cooleeney, Lavistown, Knockdrinna Gold, St Tola Log, Mount Callan, Mossfield Organic, Grace, Glebe Brethan, Bellingham Blue, Corleggy. I have heard of only one of these before "cashel Blue". St Tola Log sounds like something i'll have to try! 

 Source Maps taken from the World Cheese Book, by Juliet Harbutt, published by DK Via http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/10/map_of_the_week_cheese.html

Irish student alcohol usage

A map by researchers from the University College Dublin shows how much the average Irish student drinks a year, by county. Students from counties shown in blue drink in excess of 351 units of alcohol a year. Students in Monagh, Donegal, Tiperrary and Carlow drink the least per year - between 200 and 250 units each. 

Snow fall rate in Republic of Ireland

Excellent essay on snowfall in Ireland over the centuries. Map above is for the last 50 years. If im reading the article right then, should NI have been included then they would have the highest level of snow. See article here.  

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?

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.

Next Gen broadband usage in the Republic

Where the next the generation of Broadband is likely to take off. Interesting in that this is in someways the clearest representation of urban Ireland I've come across giving a truer (as i understand them) picture of the sizes of Irish cities and towns. For example Cork city is recorded as having decreased in size in the last census yet the reality is that the small towns (ballincollig, glanmire, carrigaline) around significantly increased. This pattern is replicated in other areas as well. I wonder if city boundaries will be redrawn in the future? 

I have forgotten where i found this map. 

King Billy in Ireland

Not the best one i've found... Basically he starts in the north in 1689 and works his down to Kinsale for the last battle in 1690. Orange Order made this map in conjunction with the creation of a tourist venture whereby people can follow the "williamite trail". Original can be found here : http://www.grandorangelodge.co.uk/nomadic.pdf 

Hurling Regions

so only 3 counties - Waterford, Killkenny and Tipperary are totally in the hurling zone. Im told that there are football only parts of Tipperary though.  One might be surprised to see that cork seems to have a smaller area of hurling land compared to its success but you should know that the shaded area includes the city which  has a lot of teams for a realtively small area.

Offally was not a hurling county until the late 1970's . The GAA conducted an experiment/program to help a non-traditional county upgrade its hurling. The result was that offally won 4 all -ireland since and   took 9 leinsters. Not bad going. I'd love to find out more about this program. Perhaps a specialist out there could get a book out of it??

There a few counties that have small hold outs. Kerry, Carlow (all though in fairness Carlow is small enough that this area takes up about a 1/4 of the county!) Antrim and Down. Roscommon also appears shaded here but i dont know if that's accurate or just the way it was drawn.

Im not sure what qualifies as true hurling country; I know that some of the shaded areas have great football teams and likewise there are great hurling teams from outside the area aswell. All of the cities undshaded- Galway, Dublin and Belfast all have big hurling teams.

See anything else?

Potato Famine of the 1840's

The only thing i want to note is that the north was a linen centre and as such didn't rely on the spud for food. The areas which really suffered were the ones that did so. 

See anything else?

Protestant Catholic percentage of Population 1766

Taken from Qub Antropology department.

Can't figure out the difference between the red dot for 100% catholic and the red dot for just under 80% protestant...

See anything?

Alternative Histories...

From here http://mangafreak4.deviantart.com/art/Map-of-Ireland-Scotland-312526714

and sure why not?!

Golf courses in Ireland

Ok so once i was told that there are over 400 golf course in Ireland. Did that include the north ? According to this map there is about 75 in the north. The listings for Ireland start at 42 so I'm sure we are missing some particularly in the Dublin area but id guess the total is under 300 (according to this Map)

See anything else?