Minor Harbours of Ireland
Monday, 30 March, 2020
The Minor Harbours of Ireland collection, an important record of the construction and evolution of small harbours in Ireland, is now available in UCD Digital Library. This collection contains the outputs to date of the Minor Harbours of Ireland project undertaken by UCD School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy and led by principal investigator Elizabeth Shotton. Funded by the Irish Research Council, this project uses LiDAR-based surveys, in tandem with historic research, to examine the development of maritime engineering in small harbours in Ireland from the seventeenth century to the present.
While the major Irish harbours are well documented, there remain structures that have been overlooked by researchers due to their small size. These minor harbours describe a significant coastal infrastructural system and represent a considerable source of information about the evolution of maritime engineering in Ireland. The danger posed to these structures from deterioration and rising sea levels is increasing and the Minor Harbours of Ireland project is key to preserving an accurate record of these threatened harbours.
This digital collection documents the construction and evolution of a selection of the minor harbours: Balbriggan and Bullock (Co. Dublin), Port Oriel (Co. Louth), Boatstrand (Co. Waterford), Fethard and Slade (Co. Wexford). Each harbour has been comprehensively recorded through an onsite LiDAR based survey. Potree visualisations of the point cloud survey data have been produced for each harbour by UCD Digital Library. The research project also includes historic research on each harbour’s development, photographic site surveys, and exhibition posters, as well as references to archival documents, history surveys, maps, and illustrations. Coupled with the LiDAR surveys, this research details the complex histories tied to the shifting patterns of governance, land tenure, material resources, technology and trade that characterises these fascinating structures.
The Minor Harbours of Ireland collection is now available at: (opens in a new window)https://doi.org/10.7925/drs1.ucdlib_255666 .
While the major Irish harbours are well documented, there remain structures that have been overlooked by researchers due to their small size. These minor harbours describe a significant coastal infrastructural system and represent a considerable source of information about the evolution of maritime engineering in Ireland. The danger posed to these structures from deterioration and rising sea levels is increasing and the Minor Harbours of Ireland project is key to preserving an accurate record of these threatened harbours.
This digital collection documents the construction and evolution of a selection of the minor harbours: Balbriggan and Bullock (Co. Dublin), Port Oriel (Co. Louth), Boatstrand (Co. Waterford), Fethard and Slade (Co. Wexford). Each harbour has been comprehensively recorded through an onsite LiDAR based survey. Potree visualisations of the point cloud survey data have been produced for each harbour by UCD Digital Library. The research project also includes historic research on each harbour’s development, photographic site surveys, and exhibition posters, as well as references to archival documents, history surveys, maps, and illustrations. Coupled with the LiDAR surveys, this research details the complex histories tied to the shifting patterns of governance, land tenure, material resources, technology and trade that characterises these fascinating structures.
The Minor Harbours of Ireland collection is now available at: (opens in a new window)https://doi.org/10.7925/drs1.
The UCD Digital Library is an institutionally supported, preservation-oriented digital repository that holds a freely available, globally accessible, heterogeneous collection of resources from UCD's cultural heritage repositories and an increasing number of data assets captured or produced by UCD research activities. It is accessible at (opens in a new window)https://digital.ucd.ie.
Contact: (opens in a new window)digital.library@ucd.ie