Google has knocked placenames off map
The name of one of Westmeath’s biggest villages is among a large number of the county’s placenames that appear to have been erased on Google Maps and replaced by names that have no connection to the area.
Ballymore’s name has gone completely to be replaced by “Drumnaveagh”.
The zoomed-out version of the map gives just “Ballyhealy Road” for Delvin, while what shows up for Castletown Geoghegan is the strange “Greenhall Upper”. Meanwhile there are townland names from other counties erroneously showing up in Westmeath.
University of Limerick lecturer Dr Aengus Finnegan, who was the lead researcher and co-ordinator of the Westmeath Field Names Recording Project, and who is a native of Glasson, confirmed that there are a lot of inaccuracies: “Something has gone wrong with Google’s map – it is unfortunate as a lot of people use it and it could lead to confusion – and worse it obscures the genuine local townland names,” he said this week.
There is some anger in Ballymore over the apparent removal of the village’s name from the map: Declan Claffey, principal of Scoil Eoin Naofa NS in Ballymore, said he has never heard the name “Drumnaveagh” associated with either the village or surroundings, while Ballymore historian Seamus McDermott is adamant that the name has no connection with the area:
“The only other name there ever was for Ballymore was ‘Lough Sewdy’. It’s ridiculous. It makes no sense at all,” he says, adding that it is clearly vital for the village that its name is recorded accurately on the map, especially since Google maps are such a widely-used resource.
But, he added, a further mystery is the fact that there are townland names given that he has never heard of before such as Middleton and Sheffield.
Paul Hughes, Historian in Residence with Westmeath County Council, was puzzled when he went looking for Ballymore on the map recently: “I was researching the background story of a woman who married a sergeant in 1st Battalion, the East Yorkshire Regiment, which was stationed in Mullingar during the War of Independence,” Dr Hughes said. “Initial research told me she was from Ballymore.
“I went to Google Maps to investigate the names of local townlands, and found that the name ‘Ballymore’ couldn’t be found on the map, which was bizarre.”
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