George Taylor and Andrew Skinner obtained funding to complete a map of Ireland and raised £2000 from Ireland’s landed gentry. They produced their map, surveyed in 1777 was a great aid to travellers, who would have had to previously rely on County maps.

A portion of the page for the “Road from Dublin to Powerscourt & Rathdrum” is shown below (map no. 147). The entire map can be downloaded from the Ask About Ireland site, whose copy is a much better quality than the Google Books edition.

Taylor and Skinner Map of Ireland 1777 (Extract from Map No. 147)

A few pieces of information can be gleaned from the map. Firstly, after entering to the county, the Scalp road is shown, along with an “Old Road” that used to be the main route, that ran east of the Scalp (Barnaslingan). Enniskerry itself isn’t very detailed, and indeed isn’t in the index, the fact that Powerscourt and not Enniskerry is the destination says a lot about how small the village was at this time. There are a couple of buildings marked at the river, along with the junction shown for the road to Glencree. The Dargle river  is shown running  between the Powerscourt and Charleville estates.

Country seats of the gentry also feature heavily, as these were essentially the people who paod for the survey and printing of the map. Viscount Powerscourt of Powerscourt, Mon(c)k Esq of Charleville and Mason Esq of Bushy Park are all shown. In a clever move, Taylor and Skinner listed all the names of the houses at the back, and included an asterisk to say if that owner had not contributed to the survey. Powerscourt paid his dues, and is unmarked. Neither Monck nor Mason are listed in the subscribers, so obviously did not pay anything!

The map is a fantastic local history resource. It is unfortunately a large document (105 MB). Other Wicklow maps include the road through Bray (essentially the modern N11) to Wicklow and the road through Baltinglass.