[Carrickfergus Lough (Belfast)]

Description

Belfast Lough and the Williamite Wars.

This is among the most historically charged sheets in the entire Great Britain’s Coasting Pilot of 1693, and the most personally invested that Collins ever produced. It records the waters of Belfast Lough, here styled Carreck Fergus Lough, and doubles as a cartographic memoir of the opening movements of the Williamite Wars in Ireland, in which Collins himself participated. Its dedicatory cartouche, a billowing trophy of flags, cannon, drums, and armor surmounted by allegorical figures, surpasses anything else in the series in splendor, addressed directly to the most potent and heroic Prince William III of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith. No other chart in the Coasting Pilot so completely fuses hydrographic record with political homage.

The Map in Detail

The chart covers the adjacent coastlines of County Antrim to the north and County Down to the south, from Larne and the basalt cliffs of the Antrim coast to Strangford, with the Mull of Galloway shown on the horizon to the northeast. Throughout, depths are carefully sounded. The town and castle of Carrickfergus are prominently placed on the northern shore, and the harbors of Belfast, Bangor, and Holywood are all named. The location of the King’s landing at Carrickfergus is clearly marked, as is the Duke of Schomberg’s earlier disembarkation at Bangor in 1689. On both sides of the inlet, minute vignettes of bonfires represent the efforts to guide Williamite ships through the lough at night. The large inset prospect in the upper left depicts the town and its medieval castle from the water, with the royal squadron riding at anchor and small boats ferrying the King ashore. The engraving was made by Collins’s own brother James, and Collins, as a participant in the event, very likely supplied the original sketch for the view.

Historical Context

William III landed at Carrickfergus on 14 June 1690, the most consequential royal arrival in Ireland since the Norman conquest. He had come to take personal command of the Williamite forces against the Jacobite army of James II, and the campaign that followed would culminate in the Battle of the Boyne less than three weeks later. Collins had been present in these waters in his capacity as a naval officer, and the chart carries the marks of direct personal observation throughout. The bonfire vignettes, those small marks of flame on either shore, record the improvised night-navigation system by which local supporters guided the Protestant fleet through unfamiliar waters, a detail that no purely documentary surveyor would have thought to include. The Duke of Schomberg’s landing at Bangor the previous year, in 1689, which marked the beginning of the Williamite military campaign in Ireland, is also noted, giving the sheet a narrative sweep across the entire opening phase of the war. The inset prospect of Carrickfergus, engraved by James Collins from his brother’s sketch, transforms what might have been a purely functional harbor view into something close to historical painting, the royal squadron at anchor and the boats pulling for shore composing a scene of dynastic arrival that the dedicatory cartouche, with its martial trophies and address to William as King and Defender of the Faith, frames as an act of providential deliverance.

Publication History and Census

This chart appears as a plate in Great Britain’s Coasting Pilot, first published in London in 1693. The plates were reprinted throughout the eighteenth century by the Mount publishing dynasty, first as Mount & Page and later as Mount & Davidson, and surviving sheets are most commonly encountered as individual disbound leaves.