Rare Old Map of Ireland in 1685 by Sir William Petty - Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway

Few maps carry as much historical weight as this one: Sir William Petty's map of Ireland, published in 1685 and built from survey work he had completed decades earlier as part of the Down Survey, the first systematic land survey ever conducted of an entire country. Petty, a physician and economist working for Cromwell's administration in Ireland, was tasked with mapping forfeited land after the Cromwellian conquest, and the county-by-county survey he produced went on to shape nearly every Irish map made over the following century. This particular edition draws the whole island onto a single sheet, a rarer format than the county volumes his survey more typically produced.

The map sets out Ireland's four provinces and its major cities: Dublin on the east coast, Cork and Limerick to the south and southwest, Galway on the Atlantic seaboard, and Waterford in the southeast, with baronies, rivers, and coastal features drawn in the plain, functional style typical of late seventeenth-century surveying. The River Shannon, the longest in Ireland, runs down through the centre of the sheet from Lough Allen to its broad estuary near Limerick, and the mountainous west is set apart from the fertile midland plains through careful shading. Bays, headlands, and harbours line the full coast, a reminder that this was drawn as a working tool for administrators and landholders rather than as a decorative chart.

Collectors of seventeenth-century cartography will recognise this as one of the foundational maps of modern Ireland, and it holds particular appeal for anyone with family ties to Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, or Waterford researching the Cromwellian settlement period. It also makes an unusual gift for a historian or genealogist curious about the origins of Irish land surveying. Reproduced at high resolution, the print preserves the fine detail of Petty's original engraving and is available across a range of sizes.