Irish Mile
Modern equivalent
2,240 yards = 2.048 kilometres = 1.27 English miles
Two thousand two hundred and forty yards, the longest of the miles used across these islands.
An Irish mile is more than a quarter longer than an English one, and unlike most national comparisons this is arithmetic rather than prejudice. The Irish perch was seven yards where the English perch was five and a half, so everything built upon it came out proportionally larger: the chain, the furlong, the acre and the mile alike. The unit appeared on Irish milestones and estate maps into the nineteenth century, and when Ordnance Survey came to map Ireland in the 1830s the two systems had to be reconciled parish by parish, a task that consumed a good deal of the survey’s effort. A journey described in Irish miles was considerably further than an English traveller expected, which is how the phrase entered the language.