'A Land of Milk and Honey': The Physico-Historical Society, Improvement and the Surveys of Mid-Eighteenth-Century Ireland

Abstract:Thıs article outlines the work of the Physico-Historical Society (1744-52) in collecting and publıshing Irish county surveys. Only five surveys were eventually published, but the manuscript materials left by the society (listed in an appendix to this article) are a treasure trove of information about the state of Ireland ın the mid-eıghteenth century and the attıtudes of the society's almost exclusively Church of Ireland members. The precedents from the seventeenth century are noted here, as are the new directions taken by the Physico-Historical Society. The article also examines dıfferences in emphasis among the activists of the society, between those driven by the need to show ımprovements and replicate these elsewhere, those who were interested in recording the natural or civil history, and some who were moving in more 'romantic' directions.