Creator(s): Hardiman, James, 1782-1855, Irish historian
Carew, George, 1555-1629, Earl of Totnes, statesman
Administrative History ↴
James Hardiman (1782-1855) was born in Co. Mayo and trained as a lawyer. He was librarian in Queen's College Galway.
George Carew (1555-1629) 1st Earl of Totnes and President of Munster.
Archival History ↴
This collection has been in the possession of the Trinity College Dublin library since the late eighteenth century. Quoting from J.H. Andrews (below): 'Carew is said to have wanted all his Irish papers to be deposited at Trinity ... though as it turned out most of them finally came to rest at Lambeth Palace in London. Nobody knows when, how or why the maps became detached from the collection and found their way to Dublin. They simply turn up in the College records of the late eighteenth century .... It was a non-Trinity historian, James Hardiman of Galway, who first catalogued them in 1821, apparently on his own initiative, and after being bound into a single, large volume they became generally known as the Hardiman atlas ...The credit for [the rediscovery of their true origin] belongs to a recent Keeper of Manuscripts William O'Sullivan, who put the issue beyond any doubt by identifying Carew's hand on many of the Hardiman maps and by collating all their titles and subjects with the original early-seventeenth-century catalogue still at Lambeth'.
Immediate Source Acquisition ↴
Unknown
Content & Structure
Scope & Content: Hardiman, James, 1782-1855, Irish historian
Carew, George, 1555-1629, Earl of Totnes, statesman ↴
The collection of maps made by George Carew, Lord President of Munster at the beginning of the 17th century, contains nearly 90 maps and is one of the largest sets of original Tudor and early Stuart maps of Ireland surviving anywhere. They are known collectively as the ‘Hardiman Atlas’ after their first cataloguer, James Hardiman.
Quoting from J.H. Andrews (below): These maps, which are ‘for the most part competently drawn and attractively coloured’ and which ‘display not one scale of latitude or longitude in the entire collection … are essentially the by-product of a military and political conquest. However, as well as forts, defended towns and troop movements, they are rich in placenames, territorial boundaries and a good deal of ordinary landscape detail.’
Appraisal Destruction ↴
Permanent Retention
Arrangement ↴
The 90 maps are bound in 6 portfolios
Conditions of Access & Use
Access Conditions
Consultation of digital surrogates only.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Please contact mscripts@tcd.ie for guidance.
Creation Dates
[c1560-1620]
Extent Medium
6 portfolios of maps
Material Language Script
English and Latin
Finding Aids
An item level catalogue complete with images is available to view via the online catalogue
Archive Web Link →
Allied Materials
Publication Note
W. 'Sullivan, 'George Carew's Irish Maps', Long Room 26-27 (1985), pp. 15-25
J.H. Andrews, 'Maps and Atlases', Treasures of the Library Trinity College Dublin ed., Peter Fox (RIA: Dublin, 1986)
Annaleigh Margey, Mapping Ireland, c.1550 1640: a catalogue of the early modern maps of Ireland including maps relating to plantation, (Irish Manuscripts Commission: Dublin)
Notes
Note
Rebound in 6 portfolios in 1982.
Descriptive Control Area
Archivist Note
Adapted by Natalie Milne, February 2014.
Rules/Conventions
ISAD(G): General International Standard Archival Description. 2nd ed. Ottowa: International Council on Archives, 2000. National Council on Archives: Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names. Chippenham: National Council on Archives, 1997.
