This is a play about the death of the Irish language which was expedited in the early 19th century by the Imperialist mapping project - the Ordnance Survey. The survey which created six-inch maps of Ireland was an instrument of colonial administration whose impetus was to standardize taxation practices but was more concerned with ownership and control, anglicizing placenames, dominating people, erasing identity. The text beautifully and tragically renders the miscommunication, violence and misunderstanding between the two nations, and heightens the sense of loss, trauma and injury done to people no longer able to read their own landscape or speak their own tongue. The terse King's English is inferior to the culturally rich and rhythmic Irish lilt and the Latin and Greek also spoken in the hedge-school is just fabulous. Hugh, in fact, makes the comment to one of the royal engineers that the Irish 'feel closer to the warm Mediterranean ... we tend to overlook your Island.' Sadly, the little community of Baile beag now 'must learn where we live ... we must learn to make English our new home'. For more insightful detail on the survey and the field of Irish Modernism see: The Ordnance Survey and Modern Irish Literature by Cóilín Parsons