Information about Spiddle River

The Ordnance Survey Letters are letters between John O'Donovan and his supervisor, Thomas Larcom, regarding the work of compiling the Field Books. These letters provide further discussion on many of the places listed in the Field Books.

References to this place can be found in the following letter.

• Volume 3 page 148

Booley, Bola, Boola, Bool, the most usual anglicised forms of buaile, a milking or dairy-place, for which see vol. i. p. 239. Latterly the term was often applied to any cattle enclosure near the homestead where cows were brought together morning and evening and fed and milked. Boolies, the same only with the English plural: p. 11 [reproduced below].

Many of our local names - for obvious reasons - are plural, as happens in all other countries (vol. i. p.32). Very often in such cases, the Irish plural termination is rejected in anglicisation and the English plural termination s adopted.

This link is not a link to the townland that you are currently researching; however, if you follow this link, you will see a search box near the top of the page which you can use to search for your townland.

Having followed this link, you will see several expandable links - each link has a plus sign on its left - on the top left of the page. Expand 'Base Information and Mapping'. Now it is possible to select the maps that you wish to view by clicking on the checkbox that is on the left of each map; this list includes the original Ordnance Survey maps.

You can select more than one map and you can use a slider to make one map more transparent than another. This allows you to view what features were present or absent at different points in time.
(This map will display in a new window.)

Spiddle River

You can use this link to view a map of archaelogical features.
This link brings you to a website wherein you will have to search for your townland.

Archaeological map from the National Monuments Service