John Speed’s map of Munster in Ireland in its first state. It includes Waterford and Limerick extending south westerly to include the city of Cork. It includes two fine town plans of Limerick and Cork, both with a key to notable buildings. John Speed (1552-1629) is the best known and, among collectors, the most popular British cartographer. He was, like his father, a tailor by trade with a passion for history. On joining the Society of Antiquaries, he took his first steps towards the compilation of the atlas that has placed him among the cartographic immortals.

In 1611 he produced the ‘History of Great Britain’ and his atlas, the ‘Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain’, was published to accompany it. The ‘Theatre …’ was the first atlas of the British Isles ever produced, containing sixty-seven maps which, in addition to the counties of England and Wales, also included general maps of the Heptarchy (England in Anglo-Saxon times), Great Britain and Ireland, England, Wales, Scotland, and the Provinces of Ireland, together with maps of the Isles of Wight and Man and the Channel Islands. Preparation for the atlas took several years and the maps are all engraved by Jodocus Hondius in Amsterdam whose imprint appears here lower left. Bonar-Law (1979) ‘John Speed Maps of Ireland’; Bonar-Law (2013); Shirley (2004) T.Spe 1f; Skelton (1970) 7 & 18.