A new computerised map which shows the boundaries of parishes in the diocese of Ferns has been unveiled in Wexford library. Electronic and paper copies were presented to Bishop Denis Brennan and the maps can be viewed on Wexford County Council’s website, www.wexford.ie or in the county’s public libraries.
Establishing parish boundaries accurately is notoriously difficult because of changes over many centuries, which has left a situation where some townlands are claimed by two parishes and others are divided between parishes.
The Ferns project anticipated a national project of the Catholic hierarchy to accurately define the boundaries of each parish in the country.
The project was developed by the County Council’s library and IT departments and historical societies in the county.
Information for the project was compiled from parish priests in the diocese and where a townland seemed to be split between two parishes, it was allocated to whichever had the larger share.
Part of the rationale for the project is the secular significance which parishes have assumed for community organisations such as the GAA and community development groups.
The Ferns diocese currently has 49 parishes, whose boundaries loosely go back nine hundred years.
Up to the Reformation, Ferns had over 130 parishes but records from 1837 show this to have fallen to 35.
The last new parish created in the diocese was the seaside village Riverchapel.
The computerised mapping now paves the way for a Parish Heritage Project being planned by the Wexford library service which will attach historical, archaeological and environmental information to every parish in the county.
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(Source: CIN)