observations


Alley Distribution
This alley location map shows the circa 700 alley locations collected by the research in August 2010.
Database of locations compiled by A.Ryan make use: buildings places situations; GIS map generated by R. Butler from CSR Land Planning and Design; using the URBIS sptial data provided to the project by the Urban Institute at UCD.



Typological Variations
The handball alley comprises few elements - a level playing surface approximately thirty feet wide by sixty feet long, with a play wall at one end buttressed by side-walls. Yet this set of few elements produced many typoogical versions (as illustrated by the above sample of alleys, drawn at the same scale) ranging in complexity from the simple, stone-built, play-wall with low and short side-walls, to the fully enclosed, high-walled conrete alley incroporating a viewing terrace above the entrance.
These drawings were prepared for 2nd edition of Atlas of Irish Rural Landscape, edited by F.H.A. Aalen, Kevin Whelan and Matthew Stout, published by Cork University Press, 2011. Read More......