The BBC Today show reports that the National Archive has made available electronic versions of its collection of early Irish maps drafted during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. Beyond historical curiosity, the 'State Papers Collection' (c1558-c.1610) demonstrates how Ireland as a territory was invested with meanings through cartographic representations shaped by an English imperial vision of what Ireland was, what it needed to be, and how to best go about capitalizing on its assets.
As Gearoid O Tuathail (1996) has noted in his book Critical Geopolitics:
- Maps were...a crucial part of the technical infrastructure necessary for the plantation and governance of a space seized by the English Crown. Without maps, Ireland was an illegible surface to English planners and administrators, a disorientating space that was not yet a territory. The function of cartography was to transform seized space into a legible, ordered imperial territory...Together with private adventurers and colonial entrepreneurs, colonial administrators...elaborated plans to make Ireland a "razed table" upon which the Elizabethan state could transcribe a neat territorial pattern. In doing so, they invented "Ireland" as a geographical and discursive identity...Descriptions of the physical landscape were inseparable from governmental, commercial, and moral discourses...Ireland was a wild feminine land awaiting cultivation, a virgin territory in need of husbandry (4-5)
Thus, both the archive and the work of political geographers like O Tuathail draw our attention to how cartography is highly political and shaped by relations of power that sanction some forms of activity while foreclosing on others.
A special thanks to Susan Killick for forwarding me the link!
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