A Century of Recovery – and Beyond - Marking the centenary of the Four Courts fire (1922) and the launch of the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland

15 Gold Seam 2 Cromwellian Surveys of the Seventeenth Century On 23 October 1641, Sir Phelim O’Neill, an Ulster nobleman, triggered a widespread revolt by Irish Catholics against English rule in Ireland. So began a period of upheaval and confiscation which ended with the defeat and exile of King James II in 1688. In the space of a generation, the Irish Catholic landowning élite was stripped of their estates, titles and privileges. To facilitate this extensive seizure and redistribution of land, Ireland was surveyed and mapped with greater intensity and regularity than any other country in Europe. The Cromwellian Surveys Gold Seam provides unprecedented access for anyone researching land ownership in Ireland throughout the early modern period. The maps and books presented here are extraordinarily rich in detail and provide a window into the world of the Irish Catholic nobility and the mainly Protestant ascendancy that replaced it. At the core of this resource are the Books of Survey and Distribution , which were held in the Surveyor General’s Office collection in the Public Record Office of Ireland. The Surveyor General’s copy was destroyed in 1922. The digitized version available through the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland is a duplicate copy held by the National Archives (Ireland). This duplicate was digitized and transcribed in partnership with the Irish Manuscripts Commission. A double-page from the Books of Survey and Distribution showing an entry for County Wexford (National Archives of Ireland).