There aren't many works of art you can buy for under a fiver these days. But stroll into any good bookshop, and you can choose from one of 89 beautiful prints of Ireland, lovingly prepared by the Ordnance Surveys of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Or maybe you'd prefer the elegant simplicity of Tim Robinson's distinctive maps of the Burren, the Aran Islands and Connemara.
Each Ordnance Survey map carefully details some small corner of the country. Every holy well and standing stone is marked, each sandy beach and cliff denoted, the slope of every hill depicted, the bends in every river drawn, every road and track noted, every building recorded. (Well OK, nearly every.)
Maps are not just works of art. They are also local encyclopaedias, valuable archives of information, windows into our landscape and heritage. They recreate a vast and complex three-dimensional world in a (relatively) small, two-dimensional image.
They are the fruits of the labours of cartographers, and the products of sophisticated technology and aerial photography, not to mention hard, foot-slogging fieldwork.
Copper mines
Open one, and without leaving your armchair you can study the disused copper mines at Allihies, marvel at the hundreds of islands in Strangford Lough, trace the Blackwaters intriguing right-hand bend at Cappoquin, and see the mountainous circle of the volcanic crater that is Armagh's Ring of Gullion.
So be done with those pitiful road maps. They are designed only to get you from A to B, and will not detain you en route, or divert you with interesting asides along the way. Become an explorer instead, and treat yourself to a 1:50,000 (aka the OSI Discovery maps).
Get the one for your own local area, if you don't already have it, or the map for wherever it is you are off to for that next weekend away.
Not so long ago, I invested in the OSIs full set of 89 maps. Buy the lot, and you get a generous discount (thank you again, Brian H). They sit in a big box in my office and, like a child with chocolates, I keep dipping in to consult them. Every time I think of somewhere I've been, or would like to go, I find myself thinking: Wonder where that is on the map? Or, what would that landscape look like on a map? And off I go again, to pore over some paper treasure.
Map number 37, for example, shows the delightful old clapper bridge at the ford of Bunlahinch in Mayo. X marks the spot or to be precise, grid reference L 754 759. (Never seen a clapper bridge? Then a small treat is in store, when next you are in the Louisburgh area.)
Curraghcloe's kettle moraine in Co Wexford has a distinctive appearance on sheet number 77. As does the leaky limestone formations at the southeast corner of Lough Mask (to be found on sheet 38), or the hundreds of drumlins swarming over Westport and into Clew Bay (sheets 30-31).
Waterproof maps
So, why am I unhappy? Well, precisely because these are paper treasures. Call me old-fashioned, but I want my maps printed on everlasting plastic. Or at least, waterproof and untearable paper.
You only have to open and close a paper map a few times for the print to blur in the creases. Holes start opening up in the corners, and the map comes apart along the folds, leaving you with colourful streamers. Very pretty, not a lot of use. Whole roads, houses and rivers can be swallowed up by these newly created black holes.
And that is before you ever get the map wet. Not that you would deliberately get a map wet, but you know how it is when it rains. And then the wind whips the map out of your hands and shreds it on the nearest bramble.
Oh, I know about map cases and laminating. Map cases can be a nuisance, and laminated maps are bulky. It would be so much easier if you could just get a strong, weatherproof map.
Well, now you can. For Connemara. Harvey Maps, a Scottish company, has produced a waterproof, robust map of Connemara National Park, specially designed for hillwalkers. It costs nearly twice the price of a conventional paper map, but I know a lot of people who would happily pay the difference.
And if a Scottish company can do it, why not the OSI? Well here, for all my hill-walking comrades who have long wondered the same thing, is the argument given me by Stephen Curran, the surveys' business development manager.
It seems the OSI prints all its own maps in-house, which helps keep costs down. They can see the benefit and attraction of waterproof maps, and have even printed some test runs. Unfortunately, using waterproof paper means you have to change the printing inks and re-tension the printing machines. Which is costly.
If they did produce waterproof maps, they would still have to print all the old soluble maps as well, because not everyone needs waterproof maps. Which would mean carrying twice as much stock (which is costly), and twice as many bar codes (although, I haven't quite figured out why that should be an issue).
Hill-walking areas
A company like Harvey can cherry-pick the popular hill-walking areas, but the OSI is obliged to cover the country. Which is also costly. And what's more they have to update the maps regularly.
Curran says the OSI jury is still undecided, and may yet produce some waterproof maps. He thinks the future lies in digital maps which you will download onto a palmtop. Call me old-fashioned, but I'd prefer paper any day.
The full range of OSI maps and products, including aerial photographs of your locality, are available from the OSI's sales office in the Phoenix Park, Dublin (www.osi.ie).