About

Why I started this

When I came home to Ireland after years in the US, I was taken aback by how much religious iconography there still is. There are statues of Mary outside hospitals, and crucifixes on church steeples wherever I look as I cycle to work. Churches, nursing homes, HSE facilities and schools, many of them with religious symbols.

Then I started thinking about the Ireland my two young children are growing up in. Education, especially in the early years, shapes how we learn and how we understand ourselves and the world. Close to 90% of primary schools in Ireland are under Catholic patronage, and the State’s auditor has found that 85% of schools are built on land owned by patrons or trustees. The State pays to build and run these schools, but the land often stays in Church hands. How much land is that, and what is it worth?

A lot of excellent journalism and research has been published on this (see the reading list). What’s missing is a living map: one the public can use, add to and argue over, that keeps track of what is owned, bought and sold.

Why the Church first

The Catholic Church is still one of the biggest landowners in Ireland. Its influence on Irish life has waned, but land still brings money and power. Its holdings are spread across dioceses, parishes, orders, trusts, companies and named individuals, which makes it hard to see the whole picture, and easy to avoid responsibility. Open Talamh is about making that picture visible. It may later broaden to State bodies and other owners.

Why “open”

The “open” in Open Talamh is deliberate. This is meant to be a community effort: something journalists, historians, local researchers and anyone curious can use and contribute to. The data, code and method are all public.

About me

I’m Maedbh King. I trained as a neuroscientist, with a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, where I spent years building maps of the human brain. Now I’m using those same research skills for public-interest research: mapping who owns Ireland’s land, carefully and transparently.

Talamh is Irish for land. Get in touch at opentalamh@proton.me.