Show/hide menu

Timeline of the Geological Survey of Ireland 1845-1905

Abstracted and slightly amended from Herries Davies, G.L. North From the Hook. 1996.

1st April 1845 The Geological Survey of the United Kingdom comes into existence under the directorship of Henry De La Beche. The Geological Survey of Ireland was a constituent part under the first Local Director Captain Henry James. The Irish survey was first located in the Customs House, Dublin.
2nd May 1844 De La Beche instructs that the geological survey should begin in southeastern Ireland.
4th July 1846 Thomas Oldham takes over from Henry James as Local Director.
26th June 1848 The Survey publishes its first map. The County map of Wicklow.
1848 Four longitudinal sections were published (now known as the 'Old Series'). (Sheet 1. Section from the Bilboa Colliery across Croaghan Kinshela to Arklow Rock; Sheet 2. Section from Dunlavin, across Lugnaquilla and Croaghan-Moira to the sea-coast near Johnstown; Sheet 3. Section from near Kilcullen, in the county of Kildare, to Mizen Head, in the county of Wicklow; Sheet 4. No. 1. Section from Glencree across Sugar Loaf Hill, in the county of Wicklow).
30th November 1850 J.B. Jukes takes over as the third Local Director.
May 1851 County maps of Dublin and Wexford were published. They were the last county maps published of a short-lived series.
5th May 1855 Sir Roderick Murchison becomes Director of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom.
1st December 1855 Murchison instructs that every one-inch sheet is to have an accompanying memoir.
December 1856 The first one-inch sheets were published. (Renumbered sheets 36 and 41, 120,121,129,130,139,148 and 149).
28th July 1858 First memoir published. (Sheet 45SE renumbered later as sheet 166).
April 1860 First four 'New Series' longitudinal sections were published.
1st April 1867 The UK survey expands, Murchison becomes Director-General, Jukes becomes Director.
1st July 1867 Jukes's Geological Map of Ireland published but not by the Survey.
16th October 1869 Edward Hull is appointed Director of the Geological Survey of Ireland following the death of Jukes.
March 1870 The Survey offices move to 14 Hume Street (from 51 St. Stephen's Green).
15th March 1872 Andrew Crombie Ramsay becomes Director-General of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom.
1873 The Ordnance Survey of Ireland one-inch hauchered 'hill edition' becomes the base map for all future one-inch geological sheets.
October 1874 First sheet on the new 'hill edition' base map published (Sheet 28).
30th March 1878 Hull's Geological Map of Ireland is published.
1879-1881 Revision of the early mapping in the South of Ireland is undertaken by Hull and Symes.
9th August 1881 An instruction from Ramsay directs that the survey will undertake field-mapping on the one-inch scale rather than the six-inch scale.
1st January 1882 Archibald Geikie becomes becomes Director-General of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom.
October 1887 The primary geological mapping of Ireland is completed in the vicinity of Rathmelton in County Donegal.
1st October 1890 Joseph Nolan takes over the Survey with the title: Senior Geologist in Charge.
21st November 1890 The final sheet of the one-inch geological series is published (Sheet 10 Kilmacrenan).
1st April 1892 The final one-inch memoir is published (For sheets 22,23,30 & 31 (part of) Explanatory memoir to accompany the maps of south-west Donegal).
December 1894 The final horizontal section is published. Horizontal or longitudinal section 35. Section 1. From Ray Point, Lough Swilly, in a N.N.W. direction across Knockalla to the Atlantic Ocean at Rinmore Point. Showing Metamorphic and Igneous Rocks and Lower Old Red Sandstone. Section 2. From Lough Fern in a N.W. direction across Lough Salt Mountain, and east of Dunfanaghy to the Atlantic Ocean at Horn Head. Showing Metamorphic and Igneous Rocks.
1st March 1901 Jethro J.H. Teale becomes Director of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom.
1st May 1901 G.W. Lamplugh is appointed to run the Survey under the title: District Geologist.
1901-1906 Drift surveys of Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick and Londonderry are established.
1st April 1905 Responsibility for the Geological Survey of Ireland passed from the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom to the Department of Agriculture and technical Instruction for Ireland. G.A. Cole becomes the Director of the Survey.