Add MS 72868-72873

PETTY PAPERS. VOLS. XIX-XXIV. 'Down Survey' of various baronies in Ireland, consisting of maps and terriers commissioned from Petty by the Cromwellian government as a preliminary to the transfer of lands confiscated from Irish Catholics after the rising of 1641 to Protestant soldiers and 'adventurers' (or government investors); 1655-1659. Scales are variable, chosen from a range of multiples to fit standard sizes of paper. 'Down survey' was the traditional land surveyor's term for a survey in map rather than written form. Each of the present volumes contains maps of the baronies (divisions of Irish counties equivalent to hundreds in England), with a few city liberties, listed below. These are preceded by 'books of reference' or terriers, giving, by parish and in columns, the names of the proprietors and their lands, acreages of profitable and unprofitable land, and in many cases some further brief descriptive details (particularly relating to 'improvements'), with indexes; this information was required by Petty's instructions (see History of the ... Down Survey, ed. Larcom, pp. 36-38). The main survey from which these maps are derived was commissioned from Petty by contract of 11 December 1654 and completed by March 1656. It was carried out under his supervision by teams of surveyors at parish level, the resulting maps being deposited in the surveyor-general's office (History of the ... Down Survey, pp. 23-29; Political Anatomy of Ireland, pp. 44-45), but none of the 2030 resulting parish maps now survives. Reductions were made by the same team of surveyors to produce the present barony maps. The maps and terriers in the first four volumes (72868-72871), surveyed 1655-1656, cover areas to be assigned to soldiers; these are grouped by province, two volumes for Leinster, one for Munster, one for Ulster. A supplementary order (3 September 1656), 'authorised the survey of seven further counties and of the adventurers' moiety in all counties' (R. A. Skelton, County Atlases of the British Isles, 1978, p. 106); the fifth volume (72872), surveyed 1657-1658, covers the areas intended for the 'adventurers'. The 'Down Survey' did not cover the province of Connaught, which was reserved for the Irish, or the other areas covered by the earlier plantation surveys. For the making of the survey, see Petty's 'History', Add. 72874 below, published as The History of the Survey of Ireland commonly called The Down Survey, ed. T. A. Larcom (Dublin, 1851), which transcribes many of the original orders and instructions; his Reflections upon some Persons and Things in Ireland (1660), a reply to the critics of his conduct of the redistributions of land which followed; 6th Marquess of Lansdowne, 'The Lansdowne Maps of the Down Survey', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, XXXV (1919), pp. 385-407; Fitzmaurice, Life, pp. 325-329; Y. M. Goblet, La transformation de la geographie politique d'Irlande (Paris, 1930), based principally on the copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale; T. C. Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland (Oxford, 1975), pp. 216-222; and J. H. Andrews, Plantation Acres (Ulster, 1985), pp. 63-72.

The present set is now incomplete; a further Munster volume, containing the surveys of Cork and Kerry, was lost as early as 1727, apparently in the course of a lawsuit of Petty's second son, Henry, Earl of Shelburne, concerning his Kerry estates. The letters A-F were placed on the remaining six volumes prior to 1797, at which time they were in the custody of Sir Francis Hutchinson, the 1st Marquess of Lansdowne's agent in Dublin (see Add. 72868, ff. v-vii). Volume 'A', the third of the Leinster volumes, containing the surveys of Dublin, Longford and Meath, went missing at an unspecified time after this. For a second and more complete set of the 'Down Survey', once in Petty's possession and now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, see the Introduction above. Related documents and maps retained in the surveyor-general's office in Dublin were destroyed by fires in the government offices and archives there in 1711 and 1922 respectively. For a tabulated list of the original 'Down Survey' maps in England, Ireland and France, apparently compiled in the late 18th or early 19th cent., see Add 72905, ff. 29-32v (also Goblet, II, pp. 11-20).

By ordinance of the Cromwellian government, place-names as given in the Down Survey were to be the definitive and legal form, and Petty himself strongly believed in this standardization for use in public instruments and conveyances. Nevertheless there are frequent variants even within this source. In the following catalogue descriptions the parish names are given as they appear in the terriers, which sometimes differ from the versions given on the maps. The modern equivalent in each case is given in brackets afterwards. The variants which appear on the other set of Down Survey maps in the Bibliothèque Nationale are given in the A Topographical Index of the Parishes and Townlands of Ireland in Sir William Petty's MSS. Barony Maps, ed. Y. M. Goblet (Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1932); see also pp. xi-xiii for a discussion.

Six volumes, the last (72873 A-F) consisting of a group of loose maps. The terriers have been compiled on large folio gatherings of paper, and the maps, drawn on larger sheets, are now mounted along the left hand edges of blank leaves added to these gatherings. The maps are executed in ink and coloured washes and most have cartouches, compass roses and scale bars in a variety of decorative styles. The remains of paper index tabs survive on the foredges of some of the leaves. There are a few pencilled annotations by the 6th Marquess of Lansowne. Vols. B-D have contemporary matching bindings of dark brown leather; the binding of Vol. E, with the [17-18th cent.?] label 'Vlster' in ink on the cover, is apparently also contemporary, but in leather of lighter brown. The first leaves of several gatherings of Vol. F are discoloured as if they had been left unbound for some time; the binding, of reversed calf, blind- ruled and -stamped, was probably added in the 18th cent. In the early 20th cent., prior to 1919, the maps were dismounted, repaired, backed with cloth and remounted in most cases along the left-hand edges instead of the centre fold, by British Museum conservators, and repairs also made to the bindings. 440 x 290 (72872: 450 x 300) mm. Formerly Bowood Vols. 24-28. Summary contents are as follows:

72868:

Co. Wexford: baronies of Gorey, Scarawalsh, Ballaghkeen, Bantry, Shelmaliere, Forth, Bargy, Shelburne.

Co. Kilkenny: baronies of Gowran, Fassadinin; liberties of Kilkenny; baronies of Cranagh, Galmoy; liberties of Callan.

72869:

Co. Kildare: baronies of Salt, Naas, Ikeathy and Oughterany, Clane, Great Connell, Carbury, Offaly, Narragh and Reban, Kilcullen, Kilkea and Moone.

King's County: baronies of Coolestown, Philipstown, Warrenstown, Ballycowan, Kilcoursey, Ballyboy, Clonlisk.

Queen's County: baronies of Ballyadams, Upper Ossory.

72870:

Co. Waterford: baronies of Gualtiere, Middlethird, Upperthird, Glanhiry

Co. Tipperary: Kilnamanagh, Kilnelongurty, Upper Ormonde, Lower Ormonde, Owney and Arra.

Co. Limerick: baronies of Abbey Owneybeg; liberties of Limerick; baronies of Clanwilliam, Smallcounty, Coshma; liberties of Killmallocke; barony of Coshlea.

72871:

Co. Armagh: baronies of Fews, Orier.

Co. Down: baronies of Lower Iveagh, Kinelarty.

Co. Tyrone: baronies of Omagh, Strabane, Dungannon

Co. Donegal: baronies of Tirhugh, Boylagh and Bannagh, Killmacrenan, Raphoe, Inishowen.

Co. Londonderry: baronies of Tirkeeran, Keenaught, Coleraine; liberties of Coleraine; barony of Loghinsholin.

Co. Antrim: baronies of Toome, Antrim, Kilconway, Glenarm, Cary.

72872:

Co. Kilkenny: baronies of Knocktopher, Kells, Shillelogher, Idagh, Igrin and Ibercon, Iverk.

Co. Monaghan: baronies of Cremorne, Trough, Dartree, Monaghan.

Co. Cavan: baronies of Castlerahan, Tullygarvey, Clanmahon, Clankee.

Co. Fermanagh: baronies of Magheraboy, Magherastephana, Clanawley.

Co. Cork: baronies of Kinalea, Fermoy, Condons, Duhallow, Orrery and Kilmore.

Co. Down: baronies of Upper Iveagh, Lecale, Ards.

Co. Armagh: baronies of Tiranny, Oneilland, Armagh.

Co. Antrim: baronies of Dunluce; county palatine of Carrickfergus; baronies of Massereene, Toome, Antrim.

Co. Mayo: barony of Tirawley.

Co. Longford: barony of Abbeyshrule.