RIA releases online Irish Historic Towns Atlases for eight Anglo-Norman towns

Printed editions are available from the RIA

Another instalment of Irish Historic Towns Atlases has been released online.

This time it's the turn of eight towns of Anglo-Norman origin: Athlone, Carlingford, Carrickfergus, Fethard, Kilkenny, Mullingar, Sligo and Trim, and they are all freely available to search or download here.

The Irish Historic Towns Atlas (IHTA) is a research project of the Royal Irish Academy that aims to examine the topographical development of a selection of Irish towns both large and small during key periods in their history.

Clues to the town's past religious life, defence and security, local and national government, industry, trade, transport, education and leisure habits are explored within the accompanying maps. Dense and accurate, these atlases reveal fascinating details about the physical environment and communities our ancestors lived in.

Included with each online atlas are:

• The cover, general abbreviations, introduction and select bibliography
  
• Word searchable essay, text maps and topographical gazetteer
  
• Map 1 (Cmid-19th, 1:50,000), Map 2 (Cmid-19th, 1:2500), Map 3 (modern C20th, 1:5000), growth maps, historical compilation maps and legend sheet.

In addition, the IHTA team has released the chapter on the Anglo-Norman town from Reading the maps: a guide to the Irish Historic Towns Atlas (Dublin, 2011) where the town type is contextualised and case studies given.

The library of online atlases now looks like this:

Towns of Viking origin: Dublin, Limerick
Towns of Monastic Origins: Kildare, Kells, Downpatrick, Armagh and Tuam
Towns of Anglo-Norman origin: Athlone, Carlingford, Carrickfergus, Fethard, Kilkenny, Mullingar, Sligo and Trim

Towns of early modern and plantation origin (Bandon, Belfast, part I to 1840, Derry~Londonderry, Longford and Ennis) are expected to be available next month.