Map of Dublin

Speed freely admits to using information borrowed from others but he mapped most of the inset town plans himself. It is unlikely that Speed actually visited Ireland, possibly relying instead on an even earlier map now lost. Dubline shows the city expanding beyond its medieval walled core into suburbs to the south around St Patrick's Cathedral and to the north over the only bridge on the River Liffey. The spine of the city ran west-east from St James Gate (56 on the map), to Thomas Street (51), High Street (48), Castle Street (38), to Damas Gate (15) - names that echo the Dublin convents and monasteries that had been suppressed by Henry VIII some seventy years before. Founded in 1592, Trinity College (12) was itself based around the quadrangle of the Priory of All Hallows located on the eastern fringe, which explains why the early College charters always refer to it as 'juxta Dublin' or 'near Dublin'.