LIAM COLLINS – 12 May 2013

A staggering collection of maps assembled in Trinity College Dublin (TCD) will reveal the exact ownership of the lands that were plundered from Irish families and given to landlords during the Cromwellian Plantation of 1670.

"We have never been able to do it to this level before – parish by parish, barony by barony, county by county," says TCD historian Professor Michael O Siochru of the 'Down Survey' map website, which will be unveiled tomorrow.

"If you are going to redistribute lands, then the first thing you have to do is map it and that is what happened," said Prof O Siochru, who is associate professor of Modern History at TCD.

"So the land survey – the first of its kind in the world – was carried out on Cromwell's orders.

"The results are amazingly accurate for the time."

More: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/maps-reveal-owners-of-lands-taken-by-cromwell-29259859.html