Document
A Coloured Map of Offalia, now forming King's and Queen's Counties
This is a map the counties of Leix and Offaly in Ireland and records the area around the time of the time of the English plantation scheme. This scheme involved the division of the counties of Donegal, Londonderry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Armagh and Cavan into plots of land to be given to English and Scottish settlers and Irish who agreed to plant and conform to Protestantism. The cartographer of this map is unknown but it is thought to have been produced in around 1565. Leix and Offaly had been shired by the Earl of Sussex in 1557 and this map was made in connection with the plantations. Settlements are indicated by generalized symbols of buildings. The relief of the land is indicated by hills drawn in perspective and coloured brown, woodland is shown by a representation of tree tops in green, other land is coloured yellow. This map is interesting in that it includes the names of English settlers and indicates by dotted lines the pathways through the woodland and bogs.
The British Library1565