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The Maps of the Down Survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Séan Ó Domhnaill
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Extract

For the purpose of the extensive transfer of land to which the commonwealth government was committed, Benjamin Worsley, shortly after the date of his appointment in 1652 as surveyor general in Ireland, began to make a rough estimate of the land available. The slowness and inaccuracy of this survey caused a clamour among the soldiers and the adventurers. Large arrears of pay were due to the former, while many of the latter had, as early as 1642, advanced considerable sums of money for the purposes of the war in Ireland. Both classes wanted their estates with as little delay as possible. William Petty, then recently appointed as physician general to the forces in Ireland, became the severest critic of Worsley's proceedings. The upshot of the agitation was that the plan of survey was modified and Petty appointed on 11 December 1654 to map the forfeited lands set apart for the soldiers in 22 counties.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 3 , Issue 12 , September 1943 , pp. 381 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1943

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References

page 381 note 1 Larcom, T A. (ed.), The history of the survey of Ireland commonly called the Down Survey, by Doctor William Petty, A.D. 1655–6 (Dublin, 1851), pp. 23-9.Google Scholar

page 381 note 2 Bagwell, , Stuarts, ii. 338.Google Scholar

page 381 note 3 Larcom, op. cit. p. 390.

page 382 note 1 He mapped one barony in Mayo—Tyrawley.

page 382 note 2 Y.M. Goblet, A topographical index of the parishes and tozonlands of Ireland in Sir William Petty's MSS. barony maps (c. 1655-9) and Hiberniae Delineatio (c. 1672), p. vi.

page 382 note 3 Larcom, op. cit., pp. 121, 319.

Hardinge, W H., ‘ On manuscript mapped and other townland surveys in Ireland of a public character embracing the Gross, Civil, and Down Surveys from 1640 to 1688 ’, in Trans. R.I.A., vol. xxiv, antiquities, pp. 45–99.Google Scholar

page 384 note 1 Anal. Hib., no. 8, p. 419. Certain statements in this report are corrected below.

page 384 note 2 Kerry, Lord, ‘The Lansdowne maps of the Down Survey’, in Proc. R.I.A., vol. xxxv, sect, c, pp. 385–407 Google Scholar

page 385 note 1 Ibid., p. 403.

page 385 note 2 Ibid., p. 387.

page 386 note 1 Ibid., p. 407. In practice the differences between these views is not very great. Lord Kerry was able to show similarities between the Paris set and tracing marks on the Lansdowne maps. Dr. Goblet holds that it is not possible to determine which map is the original and which the copy (La transformation de la géographic politique de I'Irlande au xviie siècle dans les cartes et essais anthropogéographiques de Sir William Petty (Paris, 1930), ii. 115). Lord Kerry's 15 untraceable maps may be reduced to a minimum of 8 if we assume that the 7 formerly in Lansdowne vol. F are among those which found their way into the Paris set, as Dr. Goblet suggests (Topographical index, p. ix).

page 386 note 2 Goblet, op cit., p. ix.

page 386 note 3 Ibid., p. vii.

page 386 note 4 34th Rep. D.K. P.R.I., pp. 6, 22.

page 386 note 5 33rd Rep. D.K. P.R.I., p. 6. They included the incomplete barony map of Inchiquin, of which no other copy is known to have existed.

page 386 note 6 3rd Rep. Ir. Rec. Comm., supp., pp. 502-36, 543.

page 387 note 1 Goblet, , Géog.polit. de l'Irlande, ii. 143.Google Scholar