People, Place and Power – The Grand Jury System in Ireland

22 In 1774, the parliament in Dublin granted power to the Grand Juries to raise a tax specifically to fund the survey and printing of maps for each county (Fig. 5). Work began almost immediately in some counties, and John Lendrick’s map of County Antrim was published on four sheets in 1780. However, this fine work seems almost modest when compared with what came next, Henry Pelham’s map of County Clare, published on 12 sheets in 1787. Pelham’s map was intended to be joined and displayed behind the grand jury as they deliberated over presentments and other matters. At approximately 3.25 metres squared, the map would have been by far the largest document a member of the public had ever seen. The map, containing as it did all up-to-date knowledge of the topography of the county, sought to project the power of the grand jury and reflect the importance of county’s establishment. Almost inevitably, the maps enabled each grand jury to convey its own prestige to its neighbours, and the ‘Grand Jury map’ project took on an increasingly expensive and stunningly elaborate life of its own. William Larkin was the greatest exponent of the genre and produced maps for six out of the twenty-six counties that made it into print using the public purse (Fig. 6). Larkin produced maps for Westmeath (1808), Meath (1817), Waterford (1818) and Galway, Leitrim and Sligo (1819). From 1784 grand juries were required to have their county map ‘put up, and kept constantly during the assizes in the grand jury room of said county’. 18 Fig. 5. County maps can be charged to the county (13 & 14 George III, c. 32, sect 22). “there are few things in Ireland which astonish a stranger more than the magnificence of its many excellent roads” — Edward Wakefield, 1812