51 



coloners superintendence, at the Ordnance Survey establishment for 

 England, at Southampton, for the use of the Landed Estates' Eecord 

 Office, Dublin, where their practical utility and value are likely to be 

 well and frequently tested. And I would here suggest to the Academy 

 the desirableness of securing a copy of the maps for their library, which 

 the Treasury might the more readily be disposed to grant, considering 

 that it would be the gift of an original and curious national work of art 

 to a proper representative national institution. 



I have heard it whispered, Mr. President and Gentlemen, that in 

 assuming the discovery of the MS. townland maps of the four escheated 

 counties of Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh, and Tyrone, and attributing to 

 them the value and importance I have ventured to do, I have usurped 

 the earlier claim to the discovery of another individaal. My best answer 

 to this shadowy rumour, as well as the most candid and fair way of 

 enabling the Academy to judge of its truth, is to state the simple facts 

 relating to the claim suggested, and in the very terms in which they 

 were originally couched, which are these : — Under date of 23rd July, 

 1855, E. P. Shirley, Esq., published, in the ''Ulster ArchseologicalJour- 

 nal," for 1856, a catalogue in extenso of the contents of the three volumes 

 of State Paper Office maps relating to Ireland, to which I have abeady 

 referred ; and, amongst others, he enumerates the maps of the several ba- 

 ronies in each of the forementioned counties; and prefacing that enume- 

 ration, is a note in the words following : — 



" The following maps were originally bound in vellum, and are im- 

 prest with the arms of Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, being presented 

 to his lordship by S'' Thomas Eidgeway, Treasurer of Ireland, in 

 1609." 



The catalogue does not describe the maps as MS. maps, nor as town- 

 land maps, nor as maps of the escheated lands, nor does it in any way 

 link them with the Eoyal Survey of 1609 ; and I am much mistaken if, 

 from such a description, any person was led to suppose that they were 

 townland maps of the four escheated counties they represent, much less 

 that they were the hond fide MS. emanation of said Eoyal Commission of 

 Survey. Indeed, such a conclusion from such premises would have been 

 but a fortunate guess. And I do not think that Mr. Shirley himself was 

 aware of the origin, nature, or value of the baronial maps he catalogued, 

 and so communicated to the public. And in confirmation of this con- 

 clusion, I refer to an elaborate paper published some time after in this 

 same " Archaeological Journal" (vol.iv., p. 118), on the subject of ancient 

 Irish surveys, which, with Mr. Shirley's catalogue before the author's 

 eyes, passes over the valuable MS. townland survey of 1 609, and draws 

 into review a comparatively worthless one of a part of the north of Ire- 

 land, made by ISTorden, between 1609 and 1611. This silence of the 

 author of that paper appears to me conclusive evidence, that in the north 

 of Ireland at least, and where the information would be most valuable, 

 they were unacquainted with the origin and nature of Mr. Shirley's 

 baronial maps, until my discovery and published letter revealed both. 

 And now I beg to pass away from this unpleasant, though not un- 

 challenged explanation, to the subject of my own paper. 



