Title	Author	Pages	Abs	PDF
Modelling the water budget of Ireland- evapotranspiration and soil moisture	Gerald Mills	99-116
Bluffs, Bays and Pools in the medieval Liffey at Dublin	John W. de Courcy	117-133
Geographical regions in Ireland- Reflections at the Millennium	Arnold Horner	134-165
The evolution of the spatial structure of the Irish dairy processing industry	Proinnsias Breathnach	166-184
A geographical perspective on the decline and extermination of the Irish wolf canis lupus - an initial assessment	Kieran A. Hickey	185-198
The development of the Ballymun housing scheme, Dublin 1965-1969	Sinéad Power	199-212
Reviews		213-217
Reviews of Maps and Mapping		218-219
New Maps of Ireland		220-224

Modelling the water budget of Ireland— evapotranspiration and soil moisture
Gerald Mills
Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Dublin

The water budget is one of the most important exchange cycles within the earth-atmosphere system. When applied to a surface it accounts for the partition of precipitation into evapotranspiration, runoff and changes in soil-water storage. While there has been work published on some of these components, few have attempted to evaluate these within the context of the water budget. In this paper a simple model is applied to a 5x5km grid superimposed on the land area of Ireland. The model uses measured monthly values of meteorological variables (precipitation, temperature and sunshine hours) and databases of landuse and elevation to calculate each of the water budget terms. The results for the thirty-year period 1961-1990 are presented and seem to conform to the known climate of the period.

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Bluffs, Bays and Pools in the medieval Liffey at Dublin
John W. de Courcy

The course of the river Liffey in Dublin city is not straight. Between Mellowes (Queen Maeve) Bridge and East Link Bridge there are two deviations; one to the north and one to the south. This paper examines these deviations and seeks their origin in the bluffs, bays and pools of the river in medieval times. Locations are suggested for these features.

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Geographical regions in Ireland— Reflections at the Millennium
Arnold Horner
Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Dublin

Fifty years after T.W. Freeman published Ireland: its physical, historical, social and economic geography, this article reviews the issue of dividing Ireland into regions, and proposes a ‘first order’ division into six major units based on a mix of landscape and lifestyle characteristics. An initial division between the city-regions and the area beyond, ‘rural and small town Ireland’, can by refined by identifying proto city-regions, more- and less-favoured rural regions, and regions where remoteness imposes constraints on lifestyle. Northern Ireland is seen as a distinct region because of its administrative identity and because widespread polarisations within communities pervasively influence lifestyle. Further sub-divisions based on local lifestyle and landscape can be applied to produce a total of twenty-six areal units. This style of regional division, which is largely independent of official or administrative influence, could be appropriate for describing some of the major regional contrasts prevailing in Ireland at the start of the twenty-first century.

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The evolution of the spatial structure of the Irish dairy processing industry
Proinnsias Breathnach
Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Maynooth

The Irish dairy processing industry has undergone a profound process of spatial reorganisation since the original introduction of the creamery system in the late nineteenth century. This process is described in the form of six distinct but interwoven episodes: the elimination of the privately-owned creameries, the amalgamation of dairy co-operatives into larger units, internal rationalisation of processing within these units (including the closure of branch creameries), concentration of on-farm milk production and, most recently, internationalisation accompanied by the movement towards privatisation of the largest dairy processing co-operatives. Among the outcomes of these combined processes have been the widespread elimination of dairy farmers from the industry and the reduction of those remaining to the essential status of contract suppliers to large agribusiness enterprises whose primary orientation is now increasingly focused on private shareholders and overseas operations.

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A geographical perspective on the decline and extermination of the Irish wolf canis lupus— an initial assessment
Kieran R. Hickey
Department of Geography, National University of Ireland, Galway

Wolves were a component of the Irish landscape until 1786 when the last one was killed. It had taken a concerted effort by Cromwell and his Government in Ireland to bring this about particularly through deforestation and landscape change, legislation, bounties and the efforts of a few professional wolf hunters. This paper estimates the wolf population in Ireland at three time periods in the 1600s and examines how each of the forces already mentioned led to their eventual extermination. The 87 dated and documented wolf incidents which include wolf attacks on both animals and humans, wolf observations and the hunting and killling of wolves over the period 1560-1789 show both spatial and temporal variations.

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The development of the Ballymun housing scheme, Dublin 1965-1969
Sinéad Power
Department of Geography, University of Edinburgh

The contract for the planning, design and construction of the Ballymun housing scheme was signed on the 2nd February 1965. Over the four-year tenure of this contract a total of 3021 dwellings, some of which reached fifteen storeys in height were constructed using industrialised system-building methods. This paper examines the structural and decision making environments surrounding the development of Ballymun. It charts the changing balance of power between central and local Government, the process by which the Department of Local Government became directly involved in the provision of housing in Dublin for the first time and the form of the contract negotiated.

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