Homepage of The Down Survey Project

Time 2021-10-21 22:06:57

Web Name: Homepage of The Down Survey Project

WebSite: http://downsurvey.tcd.ie

ID:209438

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Trinity College Dublin TCDHome FacultiesSchools Courses Research Services Contact AZ The Down Survey of Ireland - Home About this Website Historical Context Map Sources GIS Sources About the Project User Guide Down Survey Maps Historical GIS About the GIS Landowner by Name Ownership by Religion 1641 Depositions

William Petty 1623-1687

17th Century Surveying

Ireland in the 1650s lay in ruins. Twelve years of calamitous warfare had destroyed the country's infrastructure and resulted in the death of over 20% of the Irish population.

The armies of the English Commonwealth, commanded byOliver Cromwell, emerged victorious and immediatelyundertook an ambitious project of social engineering,underpinned by a massive transfer in landownership from IrishCatholics to English Protestants. For this to happen, the landhad to be accurately surveyed and mapped, a task overseen bythe surgeon-general of the English army, William Petty.

The Down Survey of Ireland

Taken in the years 1656-1658, the Down Survey of Ireland is thefirst ever detailed land survey on a national scale anywhere inthe world. The survey sought to measure all the land to beforfeited by the Catholic Irish in order to facilitate itsredistribution to Merchant Adventurers and English soldiers.Copies of these maps have survived in dozens of libraries andarchives throughout Ireland and Britain, as well as in theNational Library of France. This Project has brought togetherfor the first time in over 300 years all the surviving maps,digitised them and made them available as a public onlineresource.

Ireland, the Mercator map of 1570 and the Down Survey map

The Down Survey Website

There are two main components to this website. The DownSurvey Maps section comprises digital images of all thesurviving Down Survey maps at parish, barony and countylevel. The written descriptions (terrier) of each barony andparish that accompanied the original maps have also beenincluded. The second section, Historical GIS, brings together themaps and related contemporaneous sources – Books of Surveyand Distribution, the 1641 Depositions, the 1659 Census – in aGeographical Information System (GIS). All these sources havebeen georeferenced with 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps,Google Maps and satellite imagery.

Barony Map

Down Survey Data

Down Survey County Map

Open Street Map - Map data ©OpenStreetMap and contributors

Satellite Image

Georeference Co-ordinates

A Geographic Information System (GIS) integrates hardware,software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, anddisplaying information that may be geographically referenced.GIS allows us to view visualise data in ways that revealrelationships, patterns, and trends in the form of maps or charts.

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