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Chapter 17
IRELAND
The earliest maps of Ireland up to the year 1500 or so share the shortcomings of those of the rest of the British Isles especially as represented on world maps. It was not to be expected that lands literally on the very edge of the known world could be depicted with any accuracy; very often one feels that the cartographers or engravers placed the islands in the nearest available space consistent with their imagined position. Even in the first printed Ptolemaic map there is still much distortion in Ireland's shape and geographical position but, on the other hand, a quite surprising number of place names and other details are shown, as many, in fact, as in the rest of Britain put together. This detailed knowledge is not as puzzling as it might appear, for the Ptolemy maps, at least the later editions from 1513 onwards, were based on Italian portulan charts and these, in turn, reflected knowledge gained during the long commercial relationship which had existed between Italy and Ireland ever since the thirteenth century. The distortions on land-surveyed maps remained uncorrected until late in the seventeenth century but a quite accurate coastal outline was given in the marine atlases of Waghenaer, Dudley, Blaeu and later Dutch chart makers.
Apart from a few manuscript maps and very rare maps printed in Rome and Venice (George Lily, 1546, and others in the period 1560-66) Ireland is shown on Mercator's large map of the British Isles (1564), and in his Atlas (1595) and as a separate sheet in the Ortelius atlases (from 1 573). The most important map, however, was compiled by an Italian, Baptista Boazio, probably in the 1 5 8os. This has survived in manuscript form and may have been used by Pieter van der Keere for a map published by Jodocus Hondius in 1591. Boazio's map was subsequently published by John Sudbury, who later sold Speed's maps, and this version was included in editions of the Ortelius atlases from 6oz onwards. The Boazio map is a quite splendid map, very decorative, some copies even showing an Eskimo complete with kayak and hunting spear. Thereafter the trend is familiar: Camden, Speed, Blaeu, Jansson, Sanson and others of the Dutch and French schools all included a general map or maps of the Irish provinces in their atlases. Speed's map of the whole of Ireland was based at least partly on surveys by Robert Lythe (c.1570) and Francis Jobson (c.1590) and included figures in national costume; it was for long regarded as the best map available and was much copied by publishers in other countries.
In 1685 the first atlas of Ireland to match Saxton's At/as of Eng/andand Wales was published by Sir William Petty as Hiberniae Detineaho, the result of a highly organized and detailed survey (the 'Down' survey) carried out in the years following 1655. Re-issued in miniature form soon afterwards by Francis Lamb, Petty's Atlas was widely used as the basis for practically all maps of Ireland produced by English, French, Dutch and German publishers in the following century. Apart from re-issues of Petty's Atlas and its many copyists there were maps by George Grierson, a Dublin publisher, John Rocque, the Huguenot surveyor and engraver who spent some years in Dublin, and Bernard Scale, Rocque's brother-in-law. Details of their principal works are noted in the listing below.
Towards the end of the century many large-scale maps were published but, as in England, private mapping was gradually overtaken and eventually replaced by the Ordnance Survey maps produced between the years 1824 and 1846.
Biographies
SIR WILLIAM PETTY 1623-87
William Petty, after studying mathematics and the sciences in France and Holland, qualified as a doctor and before the age of thirty was appointed Physician General to the Army in Ireland. However, his interests lay outside medicine and he acquired the job of surveying a large area of Ireland for valuation and demarcation purposes. In the event, he persuaded his superiors to permit him to embark on a wider survey covering the whole country and with an organization consisting of over one thousand surveyors, assistants and others, the work was completed in about five years. For various reasons the final engraving and printing was not completed until 1685 when the Atlas consisting of 36 maps was published by Petty himself. Its popularity was immediate and a version on a reduced scale was soon issued by Francis Lamb. Petty was a founder member of the Royal Society.
- 1685 Hiberniae Delineatio: 36 maps (4to) 1690, 1732 (Grierson) Re-issued c. 1795 Re-issued by Laurie and Whittle
FRANCIS LAMB fl. 1670-1700
- c. 1689 A Ceographicall Description of the Kingdom of Ireland: 39 maps 1689, c. 1695 Re-issued 1720 Re-issued by Thomas Bowles with roads added 1728, 1732 Re-issue of the 1720 edition by John Bowles
PHILIP LEA fl. 1683-1700
- 1689 An Epitome of Sir ~illiam Petty's Large Survey of Ireland
- 1690 (with Herman Moll) A New Map of Ireland According to Sir Wm Petty (2 sheets)
HERMAN MOLL fl. 1678-1732
- 1728 Set of Twenty New and Correct Maps of Ireland (4t0)
THOMAS and JOHN BOWLES fl. c. 1714-79
- 1732 Kingdom of Ireland 1765 Re-issued
GEORGE GRIERSON 1709-53
A Dublin printer and publisher who, apart from his own publications, re-issued Sir William Petty's Atlas in 1732.
- 1732 Hiberniae Delineatio (Petty)
- 1746 The World Described or a New and Correct Sett of Maps
- 1749 The English Pilot: Northern Navigation
- c. 1772 ......... Southern Navigation
JOHN ROCQUE c. 1704-62
- 1756 An Exact Survey of the City of Dublin: 4 sheets 1757 Re-issued on one sheet
- 1760 County of Dublin: 4 sheets 1799, 1802 Re-issued by Laurie and Whittle in reduced form
- 1760 County Armagh: 4 sheets
- 1764 Plans of various other towns
- 1765 A Map of the Kingdom of Ireland: 4 sheets
BERNARD SCALE fl. 1760-87
- 1773 City and Suberbs of Dublin
- 1776 Hibernian Atlas: Sayer and Bennett (4to) 1788 Re-issued by Robert Sayer
- 1798 ........Laurie and Whittle
GEORGE TAYLOR , ANDREW 5K1NNER fl. 1772-85
- c. 1778 Roads of Ireland 1783 Re-issued
CARRINGTON BOWLES 1724-93
- 1791 New Pocket map of the Kingdom of Ireland
DANIEL AUGUSTUS BEAUFORT fl. 1792
- 1792 A new Map of Ireland - Civil and Ecclesiastical
ROBERT LAURIE c. 1755-1836
JAMES WHITTLE 1757-1818
- 1794 Kingdom of Ireland (John Rocque)
- 1795 The Irish Coasting Pilot
- 1798 Hibernian Atlas (Bernard Scale)
- 1799-I 802 County of Dublin (John Rocque)
Specialist References
ANDREWS, J. H., Irish Maps A short but very useful booklet on Irish maps
SKELTON, R. A., County Atlases of the British Isles 1579-1703 Includes description and collation of Sir Wm Petty's Hiberniae Delineatio and Francis Lamb's A Geographicall Descriphon of the Kingdom of Ireland
TOOLEY, R. v. Maps and Map Makers Apart from the usual information, includes detail of large-scale surveys
Plate: ABRAHAM ORTELIUS Eryn: Hiberniae, Britanrncae Insu/ae, Nova Descriptia Antwerp 1573. Highly decorative map of Ireland copied by Ortelius from Mercator's large map of the British isles published in 1564. This remained the standard map of Ireland until the end of the sixteenth century.