WEEK 50
MONDAY 9TH DECEMBER
PRESENTER ANNE CASSIN
ORDNANCE SURVEY OF IRELAND PROGRAMME
This evening’s Nationwide programme focuses on the organisation, Ordnance Survey Ireland, whose job is to update our maps ensuring changes on the ground are included in the latest maps for publication. The programme explores how Ireland was one of the first countries in the world to be mapped, beginning 200 years ago in County Donegal. Additionally, the Nationwide team delve into the remarkable advancements in technology that have transformed mapping techniques over the centuries.
The work on the world’s first Ordnance Survey of an entire country began in Ulster. The Foyle Estuary between Donegal and Derry became the baseline for all mapping on the island, but it was from Ireland’s most northerly Peninsula, Inishowen, that much of the innovative work began. A team of Royal Engineers, cadettes and civilians were tasked with creating the large-scale map of Ireland which would set the template for mapping in Britain and her colonies around the world, effectively a 19th-century precursor to modern tools like Google Earth and it began in North Donegal and Lough Foyle. Reporter Mary Harte finds out all about the history of mapping Ireland.
Today Mapping techniques have indeed developed beyond anything that could have been imagined 200 years ago and the maps produced by Ordnance Survey Ireland over the years provide their own history of our towns and villages. Now the mapping service is being combined with the Property Valuation Office and Irish Property Registry Authority to create Tailte Éireann. Millions of historical property records are now being integrated under one roof in Dublin and reporter John Kilraine has been visiting the old and new offices to hear all about this groundbreaking initiative.
WEDNESDAY 11TH DECEMBER
PRESENTER BLÁTHNAID NÍ CHOFAIGH
TRANSPORT AND DISABILITY PROGRAMME
On Nationwide this evening, stories of inclusion and participation as reporter John Kilraine visits a state-of-the-art training facility in Dublin which was opened by Vision Ireland to address the challenges faced by those with sight and mobility issues in using public transport. The percentage of visually impaired people using public transport is relatively low and the aim of the Wayfinding Centre is to make public transport more accessible to people with disabilities.
In Waterford, Nationwide hears about a friendship and a love for the stage which has led to a production called ‘Up Down Boy’ where the star is a young man with Down Syndrome. The play is a funny and uplifting story of a young man growing up with Down Syndrome and the programme hears the story behind this special production.
FRIDAY 13TH DECEMBER
PRESENTER ANNE CASSIN
The bustling market town of Macroom in County Cork has struggled for the last eight years to find suitable venues to showcase its rich heritage of drama and musical theatre, ever since a fire closed the town’s much-loved theatre. However, all that changed recently with the building of a new state of the art theatre and library. Reporter Marian Malone visits Macroom to find out about its flourishing musical groups and to attend the opening of the new facility and to see a performance by locals of a musical production first performed on the Gay Byrne Radio show 30 years ago.
