Ireland has a distinguished place in the world of cartography, and old maps can instructively freeze-frame a timespan. They are not merely works of art but windows into history, and this overview reflects their distinctive styles and strategies across the centuries.
Chapter themes here include the shape of the country, conquest and colonisation, transport and the needs of tourists, as well as the growth of towns and cities. The authors delve into the work of the Ordnance Survey from the 19th century, considering its genesis, processes, revisions and expansions.
Well-known names such as Ptolemy, Mercator, John Speed, William Petty’s Down Survey and Baptista Boazio’s map of 1599 all feature, along with the stylish Taylor & Skinner’s strip maps of the roads catering for the gentry.
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Maps are placed in the context of their time, with contemporary accounts by visiting travellers. Arthur Young, an English agriculturist and author of A Tour in Ireland (1780), presented a geographical panorama, while Richard Twiss is more remembered for the outrage that the account of his travels in 1775 caused than for detailed observation.
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Surprises are to be found in this book. One is the extent to which the Soviet Union decided it was important to create maps of Ireland. From the 1960s to the mid-’80s, Soviet Military Topographic Maps took a particular interest in Dublin’s military installations and industrial sites.
The other surprise is of omission. Nowhere does the book contain any reference to the work of the cartographer Tim Robinson, who died in 2020. With his unique style, Robinson mapped the Aran Islands, Connemara and the Burren, and was known as Fear na Mapaí, “The Man of the Maps”.
That cavil aside, there is no doubting the scholarly rigour of this highly visual production. Coastal charts, comic sketches and drawings – many in full colour – jump from the pages. If one were to select a 20th-century standout map, then the decorative Esso Pictorial Plan of Ireland (1933) presents a quirky approach sprinkled with physical features and cartoons alongside quotations from poets and writers.
Overall, the book reflects the scope and scale of work that has gone into delineating the country, and is an invitation to the imagination from an era long before Google Maps and satnav.
