Mapping Ireland

Today we think of maps as information, giving directions to get us from one place to another, much like a sat-nav, but over the centuries since Ptolomey’s first map of Ireland in 140AD most maps had to do with conquest and subsequent ownership.

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Although Ptolomy’s map is interesting in it’s antiquity it is not informative in terms of modern Ireland.  Of the many maps of Ireland made over the centuries and there are two which stand out as important.  The William Petty maps for Oliver Cromwell, starting in 1652, and the ordnance survey mapping of Ireland, undertaken between 1829 and 1842.

The Irish Confederate wars of 1641, which started in Ulster as an uprising by Catholic landowners resisting increased taxation, spread to the rest of the country with the aim of ridding Ireland of English rule.  2,000 Protestants were massacred and many thousands forced to flee.  In 1649 Oliver Cromwell landed in Ireland to eliminate opposition to English rule and to encourage the Protestant religion.  This policy proposed wholesale changes in land ownership and a comprehensive survey of Ireland was undertaken by William Petty. The proposed reallocation envisaged all land East of the Shannon being held by Protestant landowners whilst that to the West would be in the hands of sympathetic Catholics.  This meant that the proportion of land in Catholic ownership fell from 60% to 8%.

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The above map shows the Cromwellian plan to move Catholic and Confederate landowners who had not taken part in the rebellion Westward and away from strategically important parts of the island.  They were surrounded by ultra loyal constituencies to help prevent rebellion or revolt from breaking out.  This internal exile was to make Western Ireland a bastion of Gaelic Irish heritage and culture, whilst much of the rest of Ireland was exposed to anglicised culture.  Others, who had been rebellious were deported “beyond the sea, either within His Majesty’s dominions or elsewhere outside His Majesty’s dominions”, mostly to Barbados and Jamaica.

Cromwell’s army had been raised and supported by money advanced by private individuals subscribed on the security of 2,500,000 acres of land to be confiscated. This had been provided for by the 1642 Adventurers Act which said that Parliament’s creditors could reclaim their debts by  receiving confiscated land in Ireland.  Many of Irelands pre-war Protestant landowners took advantage of this to increase their own holdings.  Grants of land were given to 12,000 army veterans, about 750 of whom settled in Ireland.  William Petty himself ended up owning most of County Kerry.

The 19th century Ordnance Survey maps of Ireland show how maps can represent colonial control over the landscape and it’s people, and they have since been used uncritically as the single authoritative truth of that colonial control.

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          In 1825 the British parliament decided to carry out a full survey of Ireland. Between the years of 1825 and 1846 teams led by the Royal Engineers and men from the ranks of the Royal Sappers and Miners created a unique record of the landscape using triangulation points built on the summits of many mountains. The survey mapped the whole of Ireland on a scale of six map inches to every mile on the ground.  The maps were extremely detailed showing not only the physical,  but also the social typography.  Showing where the people lived, moved through the countryside, and the organisation of the field systems.  This could then be used to control and administer taxes and rent.  

          Along with the mapping of the landscape came the anglicisation of place names. This anglicisation was done by army cartographers who knew no Irish and the local Irish mostly knew no English, leaving in it’s wake the consequences of colonial subjection, the question of Irish identity and the loss of the Irish language.

        

         Recommended Reading:  “Translations” a play by Brian Friel (1980) set in Donegal at the time of the OS Mapping 

 

 

 

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