The papers of William Molyneux and the Dublin Philosophical Society

In the late seventeenth century, after 150 years of aggressive Tudor and Stuart colonisation in Ireland, the ‘English’ of Ireland became more interested in Irish history, landscape, and learned traditions. A distinct Protestant Irish identity began to slowly form. At the same time, leading figures within the Royal Society in England, an organisation established in 1660 with the explicit aim of encouraging scientific exploration, approached the English bookseller, Moses Pitt, with a proposal that he publish a huge eleven-volume Atlas of the world.

As part of this project, Pitt contacted William Molyneux, a recently qualified lawyer based in Dublin, to take charge of the Irish materials. Pitt originally hoped to publish county maps from William Petty’s ‘Down Survey of Ireland’ replete with county descriptions sourced by Molyneux. Molyneux wrote to leading scholars around Ireland from across the ethnic and religious divide. His work prompted him to establish Ireland’s version of the ‘Royal Society’ called the Dublin Philosophical Society. Unfortunately, Pitt’s Atlas did not come to full fruition but some of the county surveys survived among Molyneux’s papers alongside some of the earliest reports from the Dublin Philosophical Society, presented below. Although the endeavour failed, Molyneux became increasingly interested in the Irish past and his reading of history shaped his political arguments in A case of Ireland … stated (1698).

Papers connected to Moses Pitt’s Atlas 

In the 1670s, members of the Royal Society in England began to engage in a new type of historical research, that of ‘natural history’ inspired by the influential work of English philosopher Francis Bacon. Bacon encouraged those interested in the past to systematically investigate it in a holistic way, by understanding the topography of their localities and local customs. In an attempt to gather standardised information about English, Welsh and Scottish localities, members of the Royal Society circulated questionnaires that encouraged respondents to consider key ‘heads’ or ‘queries’.

Building on this approach, William Molyneux circulated a one-page questionnaire in Ireland, with sixteen ‘queries’ for members of the public to respond to at a county level. Molyneux asked his respondents for information about the landscape (such as the nature of the soil, the type of plants and animals that flourished locally, and rivers and lakes nearby), demography, trade, and the structures of civic government. Fascinatingly, he encouraged respondents to furnish information on:

• local culture: ‘What peculiar Customs, Manners, or Dispositions the Inhabitants of each County, or Town have among them?’; 
• placenames: ‘The names of such Towns both Antique and Modern, English and Irish, and why so called?;
• and history: ‘What Curiosities of Art, or Nature, or Antiquity are or have bin found there? … What great Battels have been there fought, or any other Memorable Action, or Accident? … What Places give, or formerly have given Title to any Noble-man; as also what Antient Seats of Noble Families are to be met with?’

Molyneux and Pitt hoped that this information would form the basis of a county description to accompany the maps created under William Petty’s guidance during the Down Survey of Ireland in the 1650s.

Unfortunately, Pitt could not afford to fund his ambitious project. Molyneux consequently destroyed his research for the Atlas but kept some of the county descriptions he had received, and which are published here. 23 of Ireland’s 32 counties are accounted for here [links to chunked counties]. Some respondents focused on specific areas within their county [link to chunked counties and chunked regions].

Interestingly, Molyneux’s correspondents came from different cultural, religious and social backgrounds. Traditionally, Molyneux is seen as part of the Irish Protestant Ascendancy. Similarly, his Westmeath correspondent, Sir Henry Piers, could trace his family’s lineage in Ireland to his great-grandfather who served Elizabeth I and was rewarded with Irish lands. But key figures among the Irish literati also responded to Molyneux’s queries. Roderick O’Flaherty provided a detailed description of Iar Connaught in Galway [chunked link] and would later rely on Molyneux’s assistance in publishing a chronology of Irish history in 1685 Ogygia: seu, rerum Hibernicarum chronologia. Tadhg Roddy, another famed Irish scholar, provided a detailed description of Leitrim [chunked link].   

These county descriptions provide a dynamic insight into Irish daily life and social customs in the seventeenth century. The research also paved the way for later scholarly establishments to encourage investigations of the Irish past across the political and religious divide; most notably the Physico-Historical Society and the Royal Irish Academy.

Papers related to the Dublin Philosophical Society

The earliest surviving list of members of the Dublin Philosophical Society was created in January 1684 and names fourteen people. Two of Molyneux’s collaborators on Pitt’s Atlas, Narcissus Marsh and John Keogh, became founding members of the Society. Most of the founding members studied in Trinity College and the Society’s first president, William Petty, provided a clear link with the Royal Society in London. Much of the Dublin Philosophical Society’s activities in the 1680s and 1690s involved meetings at the Crow’s Nest off Dame Street where members read accounts of experiments and observations. One of the more interesting reports read to the Society was that of noted antiquarian, Edward Lhyud who recounted his exploration of Newgrange in Co Meath and provided the Society with one of the earliest illustrations of the prehistoric site [chunked link]. K. Theodore Hoppen’s Papers of the Dublin Philosophical Society integrated within the Molyneux Papers presented here, provide greater context and details of their work.

Acknowledgements

This project, led by Dr Eamon Darcy, Maynooth University was funded by the Royal Irish Academy and the Nowlan Digitisation Fund. Additional administrative and logistical support was provided by the Arts and Humanities Institute, Maynooth University and the Office for Students and Learning. The Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland provided invaluable technical expertise and advice. Patrick Coffey and the wider team at Scoilnet enthusiastically delivered the educational resources. Jennifer Doyle and Estelle Gittins from the Library at Trinity College Dublin assisted with the digitisation of the Molyneux papers. Professor John McCafferty and the board of the Irish Manuscripts Commission facilitated the integration of the Molyneux Papers with K. Theodore Hoppen’s excellent volume Papers of the Dublin Philosophical Society. Finally, Dr Darcy would like to thank Professor Terence Dooley, Professor Raymond Gillespie (RIP), and Professor Marian Lyons, all of Maynooth University, for their support for this project.