{"id":2665,"date":"2022-10-04T15:22:34","date_gmt":"2022-10-04T14:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meiotic.co.uk\/my\/?p=2665"},"modified":"2022-10-05T10:15:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-05T09:15:18","slug":"map-gaelic-placeames-version-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.meiotic.co.uk\/my\/research\/map-of-gaelic-placenames-v2\/","title":{"rendered":"Map of Gaelic Placenames &#8211; Version 2!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>document.getElementById('menu-item-102').className += \" current-menu-item current_page_item\";<\/script><br \/>\n<strong>Featuring<\/strong>: A\u00c0A integration, new NLS map layers, community data&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>After the good reception to the <a href=\"..\/map-of-gaelic-placenames\/\">Common Gaelic Placenames Map<\/a>, I was been thinking about ways to improve it. The first iteration was based on <a href=\"https:\/\/getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk\/guides\/the-gaelic-origins-of-place-names-in-britain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ordnance Survey guide<\/a> that aimed to highlight the most-common Gaelic words used in placenames throughout Scotland. The main feedback was, &#8220;but it doesn&#8217;t include ____ and <em>I know<\/em> that&#8217;s a Gaelic name!&#8221;. This wasn&#8217;t the fairest criticism as this map was merely digitising a dataset showing examples of common Gaelic names, but it did show the public&#8217;s desire for a more comprehensive offering. Sprinkle in some new maps behind a comprehensive dataset, and v2 was born, focusing on SE Skye as a proof-of-concept:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"..\/map-of-gaelic-placenames\/data\/gaelic_placenames_v2_skye_iframe.html\" style=\"width:100%; height:580px;\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<a href=\"..\/map-of-gaelic-placenames\/data\/gaelic_placenames_v2_skye.html\" target=\"_bottom\" style=\"font-weight:bold;\" rel=\"noopener\">&#187; full screen map<\/a><\/p>\n<h5>New Data<\/h5>\n<p>The original map spawned lots of feedback, pointing me towards a number of other datasets, including local maps of Gaelic names and large place name databases. Although all were very interesting, only one had the potential to add a decent amount of new placenames across the whole of Scotland, and that was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ainmean-aite.scot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ainmean-\u00c0ite na h-Alba database<\/a>. I&#8217;ve also been pointed towards Gaelic placename directories for <em>Berwickshire<\/em>, <em>Fife<\/em>, <em>Applecross<\/em> and <em>other national directories<\/em> (see &#8216;Useful Resources&#8217;, below).<\/p>\n<h5>New Maps<\/h5>\n<p>One of the most popular features of the original map was having access to the (free) <a href=\"https:\/\/maps.nls.uk\/projects\/api\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Historic Maps API<\/a> from the National Library for Scotland (NLS). This uses a mixture of different maps at different scales and allows you to hunt for the Gaelic placenames on older maps, which were often made with a survey effort we can only dream of today. There&#8217;s also been varying trends of Anglicising Gaelic names, so looking at different maps can be helpful in finding a time when the original placename was used.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Version 2 has lots more mapping to explore!<\/strong> The extra historical map layers are provided as a <a href=\"https:\/\/maps.nls.uk\/projects\/subscription-api\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">subscription service<\/a>, but I got in touch with <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.nls.uk\/author\/chrisfleet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chris Fleet<\/a> at the NLS to see if there were any other free historical maps that could be used for such a project. He was more than helpful, and gave me access to a huge range of maps to use. I went through them and chose a selection that would be particularly useful for searching for placenames: 6 from the Ordnance Survey, 2 from Bartholomew and 2 historical map mixes curated by NLS. The result is a map that lets you see many Gaelic placenames and their meanings, with the ability to pore over some amazing and beautiful maps of Scotland at the same time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update, 2022<\/strong>: I originally made this map in 2020, but you know, things got in the way before it got published. Since then the NLS maps have moved to a new service: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maptiler.com\/nls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MapTiler<\/a> and the code has been updated to point to the new mapping, as well as keeping some of the bespoke mapping I was given access to before. The MapTiler service has a free tier and as such allows you to access 7 new historical map layers (as well as the &#8216;Historical Map API&#8217; layer from before). In total, there are 5 with decent coverage of Scotland, all of which are available above.<\/p>\n<h5>Useful Resources<\/h5>\n<p>A few resources I&#8217;ve found useful along the way:<\/p>\n<p> &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ainmean-aite.scot\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ainmean-\u00c0ite na h-Alba<\/a><br \/>\n &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk\/guides\/the-gaelic-origins-of-place-names-in-britain\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ordnance Survey Gaelic Origins<\/a><br \/>\n &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/maps.nls.uk\/projects\/api\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NLS Historic Maps API<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/maps.nls.uk\/projects\/subscription-api\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NLS Subscription API<\/a> &#038; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maptiler.com\/nls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NLS MapTiler<\/a>.<br \/>\n &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/fife-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fife Placenames Databse<\/a><br \/>\n &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/berwickshire-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk\/search-place-names\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Berwickshire Placenames Database<\/a><br \/>\n &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/spns.org.uk\/resources\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scottish Place-Name Society &#8211; Resources<\/a><br \/>\n &#8211; <a href=\"..\/map-of-gaelic-placenames\/data\/bartholomew_atlas_place_names_1912.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bartholomew Atlas (1912) &#8211; Placenames<\/a>, digitised from: <a href=\"https:\/\/maps.nls.uk\/atlas\/bartholomew\/page\/1111\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NLS<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h5>Applecross Map<\/h5>\n<p>This is an example of a community-led project to seek the history of Gaelic placenames in a specific region &#8211; I&#8217;m sure there are more, and I&#8217;d be very interested to hear about them. This map is really well-researched, with over 1000 placenames just in Applecross, all meticulously researched:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/d\/embed?mid=1qixkGtwg7jWIwmikqV1cdCH8NbRx6F_t\" style=\"width:100%; max-width:700px; height:485px;\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.applecrossplacenames.org.uk\/map\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#187; source<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve taken a subset of this data and explored how the historical mapping can be used to help show some context behind the data. As we&#8217;re looking at a localised area in this case, I&#8217;ve made a combo layer of the most-detailed OS mapping &#8211; overlaying the 1:10,560 (patchy coverage, better detail) onto the 6 Inch maps (better coverage, less detail), as well as keeping in the Seventh Series to show the bigger features and supply a better overview of the area:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"..\/map-of-gaelic-placenames\/data\/gaelic_placenames_v2_applecross_iframe.html\" style=\"width:100%; max-width:700px; height:485px;\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In the Applecross data, there were also many places that were recorded as &#8220;not being on any maps&#8221;, &#8220;only on Estate maps&#8221; and blanks, so I presented these as a second layer, which can be turned on (but are very unlikely to show up on the historical mapping).<\/p>\n<h5>Scotland-Wide Gaelic Map?<\/h5>\n<p>This was an exercise in highlighting all the known Gaelic placenames from the A\u00c0A database for a small region. The code could easily be re-run for the national scale, but cooperation and coordination with the data holders would be the way forward. I did start that conversation, but Covid got in the way and it fell off my priorities list.<\/p>\n<h5>Common Gaelic Placenames Map (v1)<\/h5>\n<p>Finally, the first iteration of this map generated a lot of really interesting chat, shared resources and great feedback, which helped inspire this version. You can revisit that below:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-dnt=\"true\" data-theme=\"light\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\n<p style=\"color:#595856; font-size:14px;\">After an engaging discussion on Gaelic placenames, I put this map together. Combining data from an <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/OrdnanceSurvey?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@OrdnanceSurvey<\/a> article, with historical maps from <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/natlibscotmaps?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@natlibscotmaps<\/a>, you can now explore some of the common Gaelic words &amp; meanings on maps of Scotland<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/kLPIUhH7by\">https:\/\/t.co\/kLPIUhH7by<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Phil Taylor (@ScienceAndMaps) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ScienceAndMaps\/status\/1233107515128401920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 27, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Featuring: A\u00c0A integration, new NLS map layers, community data&#8230; After the good reception to the Common Gaelic Placenames Map, I was been thinking about ways to improve it. The first iteration was based on Ordnance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[8,125,9,115,73,124,58,114],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.7.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Map of Gaelic Placenames - Version 2! | *meiotic*<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Map of Gaelic Placenames - Version 2! | *meiotic*\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Featuring: A\u00c0A integration, new NLS map layers, community data&#8230; After the good reception to the Common Gaelic Placenames Map, I was been thinking about ways to improve it. 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