Valuation Maps, Which Are Slightly Confusing Me

      I recently purchased a month's subscription to Find My Past specifically because I read somewhere that they had the best maps of Griffith's Valuation.  I'm not sure I would agree.  Their maps might be the most contemporary, but I've found the condition of some to be so bad they were nearly useless.  I had much better luck at Ask About Ireland.  Even finding places was easier; if I moved the slider to "modern map" I could clearly see the larger towns that I knew my ancestor's tiny townland was near.  That made it so much easier to locate the smaller townland once I had zoomed in enough to be able to read it's name.  I also noticed Ask About  had five different maps for Ballygolouge, (also Ballygowloge), in County Kerry, home of my 3rd great-grandmother Mary Gunn.

ValuatiBallygowlogeon for 

     I found Mary's father John Gunn in a search at the Family Search site, the spelling of the name was a bit off, Guinn, though the book above has it Ginna, but I'm fairly confident it's him.  There is also a John Senior who may well be his father!  The search engine at Ask About is very particular however and none of the spellings I tried for his name would bring him up.  I finally used the name of his neighbor Ellen Stack to search at that site.  Reading through his entry from the valuation I saw he was at number one which was divided into a, b, and c.  Lessors were John Jr. at a, John Sr. at b, along with Timothy Relihan at c.  I also saw they had no land which surprised me.  Also at number 1 was Gabriel Thorpe M.D.  He had no house, only land, a bit over two acres.  There was a fever hospital operated by Listowel Poor Law Union listed in the townland also, but it was at number 9 so not near them...or so I thought.  Once I looked at the map I could see lot number one was directly across from the hospital, not exactly prime real estate.  I wondered if they worked at the hospital?  Take a look at the map below, number one is the triangular shaped lot with something, I don't know what, drawn all over it.  

 

Lot number 1 with fever hospital directly beneath it

   
     I scoured the net for an explanation of symbols used in making the maps but I couldn't find a site that would enlighten me.  It almost looks like trees?  Did they live in a forest?  I don't think so.  Another look at the map near the top of the triangle shows some irregular groups of what appear to be trees or bushes while the symbols in the Gunn lot are in perfect rows, evenly spaced.  I'd love to know what that represents, some sort of crop I would think.  Maybe their job was to tend that crop?  I don't know who Timothy Relihan was, he hasn't appeared in any research into this family. 

     I also found it a bit odd that the a,b, and c noting where each person lived were grouped so closely, though if one didn't have a garden I don't suppose that would matter.  Perhaps they were caretakers of whatever was growing there.

     Next, looking for my 3rd great-grandfather Cornelius Ryan's lot in Goldengarden, Tipperary left me totally frustrated.  The valuation itself, and the various books generated by it, place him at lot 20.  But not a single map shows a lot 20 located within Goldengarden.  I'm at a loss as to why that is.  Goldengarden is a very irregularly shaped townland, wide at the top and narrowing halfway to the bottom where in the right corner is lot 12. (See below) That is as high as the numbers go.  The parallel lines running diagonally near the top of the townland is a railroad which the valuation field book places at lot 21, near Cornelius at 20 I would think?  Yet the map shows the railroad being on lot 13, not 21, and far from lot 12 at the opposite tip of the townland.  Something is not right here!  I really need to go to Ireland and figure this out.

Goldengarden, Tipperary

Connor Ryan is barely visible at lot 20 with the Railway at 21