50 



past with present features and outlines ; and where, as in the greater 

 number of instances is the case, the title of present possessors grows out 

 of, and is dependent upon, the plantation grants, although the greater 

 portion of the names by which the townlands were granted have dis- 

 appeared in the stream of time, sufficient identifying incidents remain 

 to satisfy equity and common sense that certain names and features on 

 the Ordnance maps are represented by certain other names and features 

 laid down on the maps of 1609. 



There is, however, one barony of the four escheated counties, the 

 maps of which have turned up, that represents an appearance the very 

 reverse of truth. It is the barony of Armagh : the lands on the right 

 hand boundary of the map, and so internally to its centre, should be on 

 the left ; and, contra, the left arrangement should be on the right. In 

 considering the cause of such displacement, it occurred to me that the 

 outlines of the map, when originally traced, and before writing in the 

 names of the townlands, might have been reversed, and that then the 

 names were written into their reverse boundary outlines. And having 

 tested this idea by an exactly similar counter- action, the true originally 

 intended map came into view. The error is all the more unaccountable, 

 as more than one-half of the barony is ecclesiastical property, in the 

 defence and preservation of which the commission of survey included as 

 commissioners all bishops having spiritual jurisdiction and charge within 

 the six escheated counties. 



The mistake would have proved of more consequence in any other 

 barony than that of Armagh, as the entire property in the barony was 

 (except a few ballyboes) vested in the Archbishop of Armagh, in right 

 of his see ; in the Crown, in right of the fort of Dungannon ; and in 

 Trinity College, in right of its grant under the great seal of England, 

 dated at Westminster, the 29th August, in the eighth year of the reign 

 of King James 1. (1610). 



The general utility of the maps may be exemplified by this planta- 

 tion grant to the College. The grant passes the territory of Towaghy, 

 but does not name the ballyboes or townlands of which it consisted ; 

 neither does the inquisition of the ecclesiastical lands in the county of 

 Armagh before referred to ; — the map of the barony names them all, and 

 defines their respective outlines, and relative position to each other. 



Any one present desirous of inspecting these maps, will have the 

 opportunity of doing so at the close of the evening ; and I would call 

 the special attention of antiquarians to the frequent delineation on town- 

 lands of a rath or habitation tenement ; but whether these represent 

 the more ancient features of the counties, or were intended to mark out 

 the places where buildings were to be raised by the undertakers, in 

 pursuance of the articles of plantation, I am unable as yet to form an 

 opinion. 



These maps are very beautiful specimens of the art of phota-zincogra- 

 phy — a name given by Colonel Sir Henry James, E. E. and K. C. B., to a 

 process invented, I believe, by himself. They were executed by direc- 

 tions of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the 



