ireland – Dan Q

Are you closer to Ireland or Scotland?

I nerdsniped myself today when, during a discussion on the potential location of a taekwondo tournament organised by our local martial arts school, somebody claimed that Scotland would be “nearer” than Ireland.

But the question got me thinking:

Could I plot a line across Great Britain, showing which parts are closer to Scotland and which parts are closer to Ireland?

If the England-facing Irish and Scottish borders were completely straight, one could simply extend the borders until they meet, bisect the angle, and we’d be done.

In reality, the border between England and Scotland is a winding mess, shaped by 700 years of wars and treaties¹. Treating the borders as straight lines is hopelessly naive.

What I’m really looking for… is a Voronoi partition…

Animation showing colours gradually expanding from points on a plane, carving out borders along their edges. — Voronoi diagrams are pretty, and cool, and occasionally even useful! This one expands from points, but there’s no reason you can’t expand from a line (line a border!) instead.

My Python skills are pretty shit, but it’s the best tool for the job for geohacking². And so, through a combination of hacking, tweaking, and crying, I was able to throw together a script that produces a wonderful slightly-wiggly line up the country.

Once you’ve bisected England in this way – into parts that are “closer to Ireland” versus parts that are “closer to Scotland”, you start to spot all kinds of interesting things³.

Like: did you know that the entire subterranean part of the Channel Tunnel is closer to Scotland than it is to Ireland… except for the ~2km closest to the UK exit.

A little further North: London’s six international airports are split evenly across the line, with Luton, Stansted and Southend closer to Scotland… and City, Heathrow and Gatwick closer to Ireland.

The line then pretty-much bisects Milton Keynes, leaving half its population closer to Scotland and half closer to Ireland, before doing the same to Daventry, before – near Sutton Coldfield – it drives right through the middle of the ninth hole of the golf course at the Lea Marston Hotel.

Players tee off closer to Ireland and – unless they really slice it – their ball lands closer to Scotland:

In Cannock, it bisects the cemetery, dividing the graves into those on the Scottish half and those in the Irish half:

The line crosses the Welsh border at the River Dee, East of Wrexham, leaving a narrow sliver of Wales that’s technically closer to Scotland than it is to Ireland, running up the coastline from Connah’s Quay to Prestatyn and going as far inland as Mold before – as is the case in most of Wales – you’re once again closer to Ireland:

I’d never have guessed that there were any parts of Wales that were closer to Scotland than they were to Ireland, but the map doesn’t lie⁴

Anyway: that’s how I got distracted, today. And along the way I learned a lot about geodata encoding, a little about Python, and a couple of surprising things about geography⁵.

Footnotes

¹ Not to mention the crazy history of places like Berwick-upon-Tweed, which has jumped the border several times, and Ba Green, ownership of which has traditionally been decided by game of football.

² Or, at least: it’s the one that’s most-widely used and so I could find lots of helpful StackOverflow answers when I got stuck!

³ Interesting… if you’re specifically looking for some geographical trivia, that is!

⁴ Okay, the map lies a little. My program was only simple so it plotted everything on a flat plane, failing to accommodate for Earth’s curvature. The difference is probably marginal, but if you happen to live on or very close to the red line, you might need to do your own research!

⁵ Like: Chester and Rugby are closer to Scotland than they are to Ireland, and Harpenden and Towcester are closer to Ireland than they are to Scotland! Who knew?

Goodbye Ireland

I’m leaving Ireland a day late, from the wrong airport, and with one fewer functioning arm than I anticipated. It’s been quite the ride. I’ll be glad to get home.

(for those that are concerned: I’ve damaged my shoulder, possibly while slipping down a hill in search of a geocache or geohashpoint; so, y’know, the usual reason I get injured… but I’ve got some physio instructions I’m supposed to follow, and I’ll be okay)

Dublin

Sooo… I’m in Dublin.

I missed me flight at Knock airport, which turns out to have been the only plane leaving that tiny airport today. So I arranged a flight from Dublin tomorrow, extended my car rental and arranged to drop it off in the capital’s airport instead, and zipped over here.

Now I’m in an underlit bar sipping a Guinness and waiting for a pizza.

Geohashing expedition 2024-11-27 53 -8

This checkin to geohash 2024-11-27 53 -8 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.

Location

Driveway outside a house in Garrafrauns, Co. Galway, Ireland.

Participants

Dan Q
his mum

Plans

A quick and easy find on our way to the airport at Knock to end our Irish adventure, this morning.

Expedition

Finding the hashpoint was easy. We drove to it, arriving at 10:31, overshooting very slightly and walking back 20 metres (we could’ve done it without even getting out of the car if we’d cared to). Then we were done.

Dan and his mother, smiling, in frozen countryside, with fog behind. — It’s pretty cold out.

What happened next is where things went wrong. We stopped in Ballyhaunis, half-way between the hashpoint and the airport at Knock, for a comfort break and to find a local geocache. Then we hiked out to find a second nearby geocache, but the icy conditions on the way back slowed us down considerably (and my mother fell over at least once). We stepped into a cafe for a quick drink, and apparently my attitude to our imminently-departing flight was so laid-back (in actual fact, I thought we had about half an hour more in-hand than we did) that my mother decided to reflect it and play laid-back too. Sarcastically, she suggested we stay around Ballyhaunis for a round of cakes, too, and I – not recognising her tone as sarcastic – agreed. In fact, I thought that her relaxed attitude was because we had a long time until our flight, too. (tl;dr: when two people famed for their sarcasm communicate sarcastically with one another, they should be careful not to, y’know, completely fuck up their plans for the rest of the day by accident)

As we digested our scones and my mother prepared to pour a second mug of tea, I pulled out my phone and realised to my horror that our plane was scheduled to depart in a little over 40 minutes: I’d got the departure time wrong. She said, “I thought you knew it was close, but you knew something I didn’t, like that it was really late!?” Nope.

We ran as fast as the icy ground would permit us to back to the car and drove at great speed to the airport, just in time to miss the closure of the departure desk. We’d just missed the last and indeed only flight out of Knock airport that day. Fuck.

Anyway, all of which is to say that we extended the rental on our car, arranged to drop it off at Dublin airport, and drove coast-to-coast across Ireland to get to a more-favourable airport and a last-minute AirBnB, where we dropped out bags then went out for pizza in a dangerously underlit bar before listening to some Irish folks music in a different bar and going to bed.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow… we’ll leave the country. I promise.

Irish Signs

I’ve only been driving in Ireland for several days, so less than 100% of the iconography of the signage makes sense to me instantly, for now. But this one’s a complete mystery to me.

Is this warning joggers than tiny cars might bounce off their heads? Or is it exhorting distant swerving motorists to put on their right indicator to tell people which way to run to avoid being hit by them? Or maybe it’s advising that down this road is a football pitch for giants and they’ll play “headers” with you in your car if you’re not careful? I honestly haven’t a clue.

Geohashing expedition 2024-11-26 53 -9

This checkin to geohash 2024-11-26 53 -9 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.

Location

Sea, 1.5km South of Clare Island, near Mweelaun Island.

Participants

Dan Q
his mother

Plans

This can’t be done. Right? Right?! Except maybe it can. I’ve found a few folks with boats and I’m going to phone-around in the morning and see about chartering one.

Expedition

I left lots of voicemails and messages lots of people, but nobody could offer me a lift to this random spot on the edge of Ireland. We later took a tour boat out into the bay but it didn’t go near it either (but was a delightful ride, and we just-about came within sight of the hashpoint).

Dan and his mother ride on the back of a boat through a bay full of islands. In the distance, the distinctive shape of Clare Island can be seen, jutting out from the sea, and to the left of it a red pin is superimposed upon the image with the message 'hashpoint is here'. — It’s actually about 10km away at this point. We could’ve gotten closer, but we couldn’t quite get close enough.

Geohashing expedition 2024-11-25 53 -8

This checkin to geohash 2024-11-25 53 -8 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.

Location

Field East of Claremorris, Co. Mayo, Ireland

Participants

Dan Q
his mother

Plans

Today we need to drive North up the entire length of the M18 and M17 to get to our next accommodation. If we take only a minor diversion at Tuam we can see how accessible this hashpoint is, on the way!

Expedition

On today’s leg of my mother and I’s expedition to go hashing around the West coast of Ireland (hampered only by the floods of Storm Bert) we were scheduled to drive a few hours up the country to move from our old accommodation of the last few nights to our new accommodation of the next two. On our way we accidentally drove the wrong way down the M6 for a spell (as you can see on our tracklog) as we intended to visit Athenry for some geocaching, before pushing on to the hashpoint.

GPSr showing 102m to a destination inside a green pasture. — 102 metres to go, but we’ll need to find a gate… and some better footwear…

We drove past the field with the hashpoint in order to dodge an incoming tractor and to scout out safe parking spaces. Finding a suitable verge, we pulled up and took a look at the pasture with the hashpoint. The gate into it was seriously churned up with mud, so I switched to my wellies and my mother pulled on a pair of waterproof trousers, and we waded out.

Muddy wellies, as seen by the person wearing them. — Some of the early bits of the field would suck us ankle-deep, but by this point things were better.

Once past the gate, it got a lot easier and we were able to quickly find our way to the hashpoint at 13:10.

Dan raises his hands - one of them holding a GPS receiver - in the air in a victory pose, in a green pasture with a forest in the background. — One great thing about having a geohashing buddy is they can take a “victory pose” picture of you!

It was the middle of a muddy field. Not exciting, but a good view of rolling countryside and wind farms.

Panoramic view showing many fields, bordered by hedgerows and distant forests. — Fields as far as the eye can see. Until you hit the treeline.

We swiftly made our way back to our car to avoid any questions from passing farmers about what we might be doing hanging our near a piece of mystery agricultural equipment we were near.

Dan and his mother grin in a grassy field. — Requisite silly grins, as required by geohashing law.

Then, after changing back into our regular footwear so we didn’t bring tonnes of mud into our rental car, made our way down into Claremorris. There, we enjoyed a celebratory carvery lunch, toured a handful of local geocaches, explored a path that Google Maps (only) claims exists – possibly a trap street? – and walked around a lake with lots of scultpures until we discovered that the route we’d planned to take was underwater. At that point, we figured it was time to go check-in to our new AirBnB and returned to our car to set off.

A woman sits in front of a plate loaded with food in a pub setting, holding a knife and fork. — I had the curry, but my mother managed to order a portion of gammon and mash slightly larger than her own head.

A highly-successful trip.

Tracklog

Full journey

(includes drive from old accommodation, geocaching, hiking, drive to new accommodation, etc)

Download full journey tracklog.

Walking

(from where we parked to the hashpoint and back)

Download walking segment tracklog.

Guinness in the Bath

It’s been a long day of driving around Ireland, scrambling through forests, navigating to a hashpoint, exploring a medieval castle, dodging the rain, finding a series of geocaches, getting lost up a hill in the dark, and generally having a kickass time with one of my very favourite people on this earth: my mum.

And now it’s time for a long soak in a hot bath with a pint of the black stuff and my RSS reader for company. A perfect finish.

Note #25196

Gorgeous view of Slievenamon towering over Kilsheelan, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, as seen from Gurteen Wood, where my mother and I are just on our way back from our successful expedition to the 2024-11-24 52 -7 geohashpoint.

Geohashing expedition 2024-11-24 52 -7

This checkin to geohash 2024-11-24 52 -7 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.

Location

Forest in the Suir Valley, South of Kilsheelan, Ireland.

Participants

Dan Q
his mother

Plans

Day three of our geohashing-focussed holiday in Ireland, and the other hashpoints near us look likely to be inaccessible to owing to flooding, but this one’s in a hillside forest. Should be easy, right?

Expedition

It took us around an hour and a half to drive from our accomodation out to Kilsheelan, from which we’d planned to cross the bridge and ascend the hill into the forest where the hashpoint could be found.

Dan's mum climbs a hill into a forest. — The route up the hill into the forest wasn’t especially steep, but it seemed to take a while.

We’d originally anticipated that we’d tackle the trail of geocaches alongside the River Suir afterwards, but looking down from the bridge made it clear that this was not going to be possible: the riverside path was completely underwater where the river had broken its banks.

A riverside footpath is completely flooded. — Yeah, we’re not walking along that footpath.

We pressed on up and into the forest. It’s mostly a managed pine forest, surrounded by pockets of native deciduous trees. The trails are, for the most part, wide enough for the forestry vehicles to traverse, and – apart from the points at which streams has escaped their culverts and flooded the path – it was mostly dry and easy walking.

Dan walks ahead on a wide, muddy forest trail. — The trails were muddy, but very navigable.

The maps indicated the the fastest route to where the hashpoint could be found would have been along a road, but we opted to climb to an altitude of about 150m to take a forest trail parallel to the road, instead, and it was certainly a more-welcome view.

Under a blue-white sky, a rounded hill towers over a fertile green valley dotted with little white houses, as seen from between the trees of an ancient forest. — Especially impressive was the view of Slievenamon across the valley, which I shared from the field.

Getting closer to the cache, we found a trail leading down and began to approach it. We seemed to be endlessly stuck at around 370 metres away as our track wound back and forth with the contours of the hill, but eventually we began to approach it. I was momentarily panicked when we disovered an area of new plantation, surrounded by a 3-metre tall wire fence, because it looked as though the hashpoint might turn out to be inside it and therefore inaccessible, but as we continued to walk we discovered to our delight that it would, instead, be in one of the mature parts of the managed forest instead.

A fenced-off area full of newly-planted pine trees sits just off the side of a forest trail. — Uh-oh, this fence looks like trouble.

We broke off the track with around 50 metres to go and began to hack our way through the slippery mud and tangled undergrowth.

A GPSr shows 48m distance to a target, off a path and into a forest. — We need to go… thisaway!

Before long, we came across a stream, converted into a torrent by the floodwater and the mountaintop’s melting snow!

A GPSr shows 28m to go... through a stream. — This stream could be a problem…

After scouting for the narrowest point (and giving up on attempting to construct a bridge) I leapt across, and then reached back to help my mother do the same.

Dan looks concerned next to his mother, in a forest. — “You think we can jump it?” “I think I can jump it, but I don’t know about you.” “Can you… pull me over?”

Dan and his mother cheer alongside a raging stream. — “We got over it!”

Now we were able to pick our way around decaying wood and slippery leaves to finally get to the hashpoint. We arrived at 11:20.

Dan raises his hands in a victory pose in a forest. — Victory pose!

A GPSr shows 0m distance, muddy ground is visible beneath. — Ground Zero!

Panoramic view of a forest with a woman in it. — A panorama from the hashpoint.

Dan and his mother smile for the camera in a forest, holding a GPSr between them. — Requisite silly grins.

Retracing our steps to the path and continuing our descent, we returned via the road to the bridge we’d crossed at. We enjoyed a spectacular view of Slievenamon to the North, a mountain that towers over the valley. Returning to Kilsheelan, we had a great lunch at Nagle’s Bar, then continued on our day’s adventures: taking in some history at Cahir Castle (and finding a nearby geocache), dodging the rain at coffee shop Keep Coffee, and then taking on a challenging series of caches on the Millennium Loop of Glengarra Woods, where we almost found ourselves stranded by the setting sun, short on batteries for either GPS, phone, or torch use, and having to carefully pick our way back to the car before a long dark drive over the winding Kilmallock road to get back to home, beer, and baths.

Dan sits in a bar; the word 'Nagles' is over his head on a sign. — Lunchtime!

A wonderful adventure that’s left me heavy of foot and light of spirit.

Tracklog

Full journey

(includes the driving sections and our other expeditions, including some lunch, touring a castle, and geocaching a valley)

Download full journey tracklog.

Walking

(just the bit from where we parked up into the forest, to the hashpoint, and down again; minus a bit at the start where I forgot to turn my backup GPSr on)

Download walking segment tracklog.

Note #25194

With Storm Bert raining off our plans for geohashing in Co. Limerick, my mother and I are off into a forest in Co. Tipperary in search of a hashpoint over this way. It’s still pretty wet though.

Note #25192

Step 2: brave the fierce weather surrounding Storm Bert and head out into rural Ireland in search of a geohashpoint.

But first, the crucial step 1: a big ol’ bacon and egg sarnie for breakfast.

Geohashing expedition 2024-11-23 52 -8

This checkin to geohash 2024-11-23 52 -8 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.

Location

Field East of Newcastle West

Participants

Dan Q
his mother

Plans

On the second full day of our geohashing tour of Western Ireland, we’ll try to drive to somewhere close to this hashpoint (maybe up towards Knockaderry?) and see if we can walk to it (and if it’s accessible when we get there).

Expedition

This part of Ireland’s been under moderate snow cover for several days, but overnight that turned to rain and as it warmed up early in the morning, the snow rapidly melted and poured down into the valleys. The River Arra burst its banks in several places, and our first, second, and third attempts to find places to cross it to get closer to the hashpoint were foiled by floods (too deep and fast-flowing to safely ford) and closed roads.

A road through a field and towards a river bridge is deeply submerged under fast-flowing water. — Yeah… I don’t think I’m gonna chance that (especially in a rental car!).

After seeing several fields of about the altitude of our target also deeply flooded, we opted to give up on this expedition for our own safety! Instead, we went geocaching in Newcastle West and then went up to Foyle where we visited the museum of maritime history and learned about the history of the flying boats that were stationed there in the inter-war years.

Dan alongside a replica of a flying boat called Yankee Clipper. — Hey look, I found a flying boat.

Loughrea Unlocked

I’m on the map! No matter what else my mother and I achieve this week, my name will forever be recorded as the unlocker of the Loughrea graticule in Ireland: https://geohashing.site/geohashing/Ireland

Dan Q found GC2BY40 Pallas Castle

This checkin to GC2BY40 Pallas Castle reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.

My mother and I are visiting the area in search of virgin graticules for geohashing purposes. This morning we set out for the 2024-11-22 53 -8 geohashpoint and found it down in a disused pasture down in the valley, then we decided to celebrate by seeing if there were any nearby geocaches to find, too!

Bring the only cache in the area (!) and at a castle (who doesn’t love a castle?) we figured it’d be worth a go. By the time we’d found a bridge over the river and walked up the winding road up the hill, we were ready for our lunch, so we explored the castle grounds while we ate our sandwiches. Now, re-energised, we were ready to find the cache!

We quickly found the tree from the description, but 5 to 10 minutes hunting didn’t reveal the cache’s hiding place. We checked the hint, but it didn’t help: none of the things around here are what the hint describes, for a strict definition of the word! So we started checking the old logs. Somebody mentioned finding the cache around 7 metres from the coordinates, and that was helpful: we followed the nearby wall about that distance and quickly spotted a solid hiding place. We had to clear a bit of leaf litter to get to the cache, but soon we had it and were signing the logbook.

Thanks for bringing us to this excellent location. FP awarded. Greetings from Lancashire and Oxfordshire, UK!