A look at Open Data

Common GIS data formats:

QGIS can be used to import a variety of formats in PostGIS, including Shapefiles, KML and GeoJSON.

• Shapefile: a popular geospatial vector data format for geographic information system (GIS) software. It is developed and regulated by Esri as a (mostly) open specification for data interoperability among Esri and other GIS software products.
• KML: Keyhole Markup Language is an XML notation for expressing geographic annotation and visualization within Internet-based, two-dimensional maps and three-dimensional Earth browsers.
• GeoJSON: a format for encoding a variety of geographic data structures.

Open Data Sources

• Ireland's Open Data Portal: https://data.gov.ie/
• Irish Spatial Data Exchange: http://isde.ie
• Census 2016 Open Data: http://census2016.geohive.ie/
• European Data Portal: https://www.europeandataportal.eu
• 2600+ Open Data sources: https://www.opendatasoft.com/a-comprehensive-list-of-all-open-data-portals-around-the-world/

Interesting datasets:

1. Landslide / Geohazards data, from GSI
2. Railway stations
3. Railway lines
4. Railway road intersections
5. Built up areas
6. Settlements
7. Population
8. Groundwater vulnerability
9. Dublin development plans

Downloading data:

# Download the data:
wget http://spatial.dcenr.gov.ie/GSI_DOWNLOAD/Landslide_Susceptibility_Map_Ireland.zip

# Unzip the data:
unzip Landslide_Susceptibility_Map_Ireland.zip