Irish Archaeological Research Digital Magazine

Irish Archaeological Research Issue 2 Jan 2012
U n d e r C r o m w e l l ’ s
Protectorate it was
William Petty (later
co-founder of the Royal
Society) who undertook
the attempt to survey the
confiscated land, this
time with greater success.
Petty’s Downe Survey, as
it became known, both
mapped and set down
written descriptions of the
counties at a parish and
b a r o n y l e v e l , o f
Fermanagh, Armagh,
Donegal, Cavan, Tyrone
a n d p a r t s o f
Londonderry. In fact,
even Petty’s survey came
in at just under 10% short
of the true acreage, but
this was still a significant
i m p r o v e m e n t o n
anything that had gone
before. The majority of
the boundaries mapped
by Petty can still be
traced today, even at a
townland level. Unlike
the Bodley survey, the
coastline and major
rivers were not ignored
as barony boundaries,
and these were made
Figure 5: Petty map of Ireland
as accurate as possible.
This gave a degree of control over the accuracy of all the units within these frames, and resulted in
a much more satisfactory outline, that could be used and added to with confidence by future
cartographers. Petty obviously had plans for a more extensive survey in mind as he set about this
one, and some years later he unveiled Hiberniae delineatio. This was a collection of county maps
of Ireland; although it was not printed until 1685, the majority of this book of maps is thought to have
been completed c.1666. The single-sheet map of Ireland, while containing much less detail than
his larger-scale maps, can be compared with the Goghe map above to demonstrate the
improvement in the outline that Petty achieved. Between these two maps is approximately a
century; these improvements, filling in the map of Ireland, and especially Ulster, were born out of the
constant military presence and the political and economic need created during the conflicts (Figure
5).
All the maps discussed in the text are available for consultation, in one form or another, at the Public Records
Office of Northern Ireland, in Belfast. Copies of some maps are also available from the National Archives, both
in London and Dublin.
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