45 



King Edward VI. and his immediate successors, Philip and.. Mary, 

 came upon the stage and departed without an opportunity offering for 

 the exercise of the conservative office of surveyor and escheator- general. 

 It is true, that Queen Ma.Tj seized upon the countries of the O'Mores, 

 O'Connors, and O'Dempsies, in Leinster, called Leix and Offaly, and 

 created them by act of parliament into the King's and Queen's Counties, 

 calling the principal towns after their own names ; but I have not seen 

 any evidence from which to conclude that mapped surveys were then 

 made of these countries, either in gross or in detail. It was in the follow- 

 ing reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Ulster and Munster burst into a 

 flame by the rebellion of the earls of Tyrone and Desmond and their 

 followers, and which resulted in their attainder and the vesting of their 

 estates in the crown by sundry acts of parliament, that MS. mapped 

 townland surveys were called into existence. 



A variety of inquisitions of the lands forfeited in the counties of Cork, 

 Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, and Waterford, taken before the lord de- 

 puty and certain other commissioners, of whom Launcelot Alford, the 

 surveyor and escheator-general was one, in the twenty-sixth, twenty- 

 eighth, and twenty-ninth years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, are in 

 existence in the auditor-general's collection of records ; but these inqui- 

 sitions only describe the names and situations of the lands, without 

 ascertaining quantities in acres or otherwise. So soon, however, as the 

 Queen and her Council decided upon establishing, under certain condi- 

 tions and limitations, a plantation of her English subjects upon these 

 forfeited territories ; and for that purpose determined to grant them out 

 to undertakers, in scopes of twelve, ten, eight thousand, and a lesser 

 number of English acres, it became indispensable to the interests of the 

 crown, as well as to equity in the distribution of the lands amongst the 

 undertakers, to have the area of each town accurately measured, ascer- 

 tained, and laid down upon a plot or map. 



Accordingly, I find a commission to that end, bearing date the 19th 

 June, in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, accom- 

 panied by minute instructions from the ministers and lords of Her Ma- 

 jesty's Privy Council in England addressed to Sir Hemy Wallop, Knt,, 

 under- treasurer of Ireland, and to other commissoiners there, of whom 

 the auditor- general, and the surveyor and escheator-general were two ; 

 authorizing and requiring them to make special inquiry in relation to 

 said forfeitures, to measure the demesnes, and to redace acres to plow- 

 lands, according to the custom of the country, and to value the acres 

 rateably according to perches. 



The survey was completed in the year 1586, and must have been 

 returned into England, as ''The Plot from England for inhabiting and 

 peopling Munster" was soon afterwards sent to the lord deputy. And, 

 further, a very large proportion of the principal plantation grants were 

 passed under the great seal of England almost simultaneously, based 

 upon that survey, and which could not have been so passed unless the 

 guiding information enabling the distribution had been on the spot. 



The plantation grants passed under the great seals of England and 



