Des peruses Cold War Irish maps
Retired Irish Army officer Col Des Travers, a longtime resident of Kilcullen, has had a fascinating time in recent years examining some of the maps of Ireland and the UK produced by the Soviet authorities during the Cold War.
In his research as part of the Parallel History Project (PHP) on NATO and the Warsaw Pact he found that maps of parts of Ireland were 'unquestionably superior' to any foreign military maps from previous periods.
"This includes British War Office and German General Staff maps of WW II vintage," he wrote in an article for the PHP on its website. "This may be due to improved air photo technologies and to the very considerable cartographic resources the Soviet authorities could avail at that time."
He adds that the maps were also superior to maps then available to Irish military personnel, but notes that Irish maps of the period were designed primarily for commercial use rather than for military application.
"The Soviet series was of such a standard that the cost of producing an Irish equivalent would have been prohibitive," he says.
The maps were produced by the 'Military Topographical Directorate of the General Staff' (VTU at various dates, and the first referenced dates on them are 1960. The sheets in question were produced in 1979.
Des Travers notes that the Soviets probably used earlier Ordnance Survey of Ireland maps based on surveys in 1900 for some of the detail in their productions.
In particular, the Soviet maps showed water mills and sites for power generation which in many cases had actually become disused by the time of the Cold War.
He also discusses how the information on the the Ammunition Depot (popularly known as the 'Magazine') on the Curragh Camp might have been acquired, as the feature had never been on the earlier maps for security reasons. He notes that there are inaccuracies in the depiction of specific structures within the Magazine.
"They also seemed intent on marking ecclesiastical sites, especially those in ruins. One is prompted to speculate whether the presence of a church on a military map was there as it was a useful reference object or aiming point?"
In all, the maps being examined in the project included detailed street maps of some 2,000 cities throughout the world, among them 23 in the UK, and Dublin.
For the purposes of his own research, Des examined closely the sheets relating to 'Naas' and 'Carlow', and compared them with OS maps of the same areas.
Brian Byrne.
(Acknowledgement for quotes in this piece is given to the PHP, by permission of the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich and the National Security Archive at the George Washington University on behalf of the PHP network.)
