A University of Limerick research project harnessing community engagement to preserve an important heritage relic has been awarded a top international prize.
The International Society for the History of the Map (ISHMap) awarded its top prize in Map History to 'Locating Bench Marks, Preserving Heritage: A Community Initiative to Record County Limerick’s Ordnance Survey Heritage’, a UL-based research project led by Dr Catherine Porter, Associate Professor in Geography.
The project aims to locate, record and move towards the preservation of ‘bench marks’: measuring points first carved into Ireland’s built environment – typically on buildings, bridges or walls – between 1839 and 1843.
Through the launch of an app and community engagement events, Dr Porter and the project team have endeavoured to photograph and record bench marks across the county of Limerick with the ultimate goal of preserving and protecting these important Irish heritage relics.
Commenting on the award win, Dr Porter said: “This international prize is a significant endorsement of the project and of the Limerick community’s commitment to preserving our shared heritage. It also, importantly, strengthens the case for protecting Ordnance Survey bench marks and helps put County Limerick and the Mid-West ‘on the map’.”
The ISHMap Prize in Map History, awarded every two years, recognises a project that explores the history of maps and mapping outside of the format of an academic paper, book, or edited collection in a way that increases accessibility and engagement with maps and map history through innovative presentations.
While bench marks are a lesser-known legacy of the Ordnance Survey (OS) in Ireland compared to early maps and have since been replaced by more modern forms of measurement, the importance of their preservation cannot be understated. Almost 200 years on, they are viewed as a tangible legacy of a groundbreaking project that would become a model for later mapping ventures elsewhere in the world.
With many bench marks lost over time due to environmental change or demolition of buildings, and with no official protected status in Ireland, there are currently no official statistics around the number or locations of Ireland’s bench marks. The ‘Locating Bench Marks, Preserving Heritage…’ project aims to change this by quantifying the loss of such a significant cultural heritage relic, eventually moving towards preservation and protection.