Civil Survey, 1654

This shows an extract from the Civil Survey of 1654 to 1656, which recorded changes after the Cromwellian Confiscations and was created in order that the Government could give plots of land in Ireland to those to whom they owed money. The survey was organised by ‘trustworthy’ local men, usually land proprietors, mayors and similar.

The originals were destroyed in the 1711 fire at the Dublin Custom House. In 1817 copies were found but these were destroyed in the 1922 fire at the Public Record Office, Dublin. We now only have copies of the survey for limited areas in Northern Ireland: Londonderry, Tyrone and one barony in County Armagh.

The Civil Survey contains much useful topographical information including a description and the size of profitable and unprofitable land. The type of wood is also often noted such as ‘Shrubby wood’, ‘Wood pasture,’ ‘Copps’ and ‘Woody bog’.

Woodland historian Oliver Rackham carried out research into Ireland’s woods, and compared the Civil Survey with the First Edition Ordnance Survey maps from the 1830s. He found that only one-tenth of woods were in the same place in both sources, and concluded that the intervening period had seen massive woodland clearance, but also a good deal of planting, usually in different places.

There are ten volumes covering various counties in Ireland. It was published between 1931 and 1961 by the Stationery Office for the Irish Manuscripts Commission, and was entitled ‘The Civil Survey, A.D. 1654-1656’.

Some volumes can be seen at Queen's Library in Belfast.