More than four centuries from Dublin to Londonderry. The counties were not drawn at once; they followed English power across the country, and stopped where it stopped.
Making a county, ‘shiring’, meant putting a territory under a sheriff and English law. A date on paper often came long before the sheriff could ride there safely, so many of these are the date of an order rather than of control.
The sources disagree on 9 of the thirty-two, and those are marked. For 8 they give no year at all, and that is said rather than guessed.
Carved out of the great lordships Henry II granted after 1169. Counties of Ireland says the division of Leinster and Munster is ‘commonly attributed to King John, mostly due to a lack of prior documentary evidence’, which means many of these dates are a reign, not a year.
The Anglo-Norman administration after the invasion of 1169.
The county article calls Dublin the first part of the island to be shired after the Norman conquest. Counties of Ireland lists it among the Leinster counties whose creation is commonly put down to King John, for want of earlier records.
Later changes: Abolished as an administrative county by the Local Government (Dublin) Act 1993; from 1994 its area was divided into Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin, beside Dublin city.
Formerly: County of Uriel (Oriel, Vriell)
The Normans, who formed the County of Oriel out of the O’Carroll kingdom.
Counties of Ireland gives it among the counties attributed to King John (‘Louth, also known as Uriel’). It was the only proper county in Ulster before Perrot’s shiring in the 1580s, and was later counted in Leinster.
Later changes: Drogheda, a county of a town from 1412, was folded into an enlarged County Louth by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, which also adjusted the Louth boundary.
Formerly: Catherlogh
Shired after the Normans founded the town of Carlow in 1207; one of the counties Counties of Ireland attributes to King John.
It was one of the five liberties into which William Marshal’s Leinster was divided among his co-heiresses.
Counties of Ireland lists Kilkenny among the Leinster counties commonly attributed to King John, and as one of the five liberties made from Marshal’s Leinster.
Later changes: Kilkenny city, a county of a city, was abolished as a county by the 1898 Act, which also changed the county boundary.
Gap: The county article gives no shiring date.
Counties of Ireland lists Wexford among the counties commonly attributed to King John, and as one of the five liberties made from Marshal’s Leinster.
Sidney proposed splitting it, with the northern half to be called Ferns; it was dropped as impossible to administer.
Gap: The county article gives no shiring date.
Counties of Ireland lists Waterford among the counties commonly attributed to King John.
Later changes: Boundaries changed by the 1898 Act. Waterford city and county were merged into one local authority by the Local Government Reform Act 2014.
Gap: The county article gives no shiring date.
Formally established in 1210, when Uí Fidgenti lands were granted to what became the FitzGerald dynasty; the Tipperary article says the sheriffdom of Munster had by then been divided into Tipperary and Limerick.
Later changes: City and county merged into one local authority on 1 June 2014.
County Limerick ↗ · County Tipperary ↗ · Counties of Ireland ↗
Shired out of the sheriffdom of Munster in the early 13th century.
From 1328 it was a county palatine of the Earls of Ormond, with the church lands forming a separate ‘Cross Tipperary’. An act of 1715 made the two ‘one county forever’.
Later changes: Divided into North and South Ridings in 1838, which had their own county councils from 1899. Reunited as one county by the Local Government Reform Act 2014, from June 2014.
Counties of Ireland lists Cork among the Munster counties commonly attributed to King John.
Sources disagree. The Cork article says the county was ‘officially created by a division of the older County Desmond in 1606’. Counties of Ireland says Desmond, made a county in 1571, was merged with Kerry in 1606. The two accounts do not fit together, and this page does not choose.
First appeared as a separate shire in 1232, as part of a royal grant to the Earls of Desmond (county article).
The separate County of Desmond, declared in 1571, was merged into Kerry in 1606.
Sources disagree. Counties of Ireland lists Kerry among the counties commonly attributed to King John, which would put it earlier than the article’s 1232.
First defined as a county in 1292 (county article). Counties of Ireland says the de Burgh liberty of Connaught was at some point divided into the liberties of Connaught and Roscommon.
Later changes: Boundaries changed by the 1898 Act.
Sources disagree. Counties of Ireland also has Sidney shiring Connacht, Roscommon included, in the 1560s–70s. A 13th-century county and a Tudor re-shiring can both be true, but the sources do not spell it out.
The Lordship of Ireland; Counties of Ireland also lists Kildare among the counties commonly attributed to King John.
In 1297 Kildare is recorded as stretching over what are now Offaly, Laois and Wicklow.
Later changes: Took its present borders in 1832, when enclaves and exclaves were removed.
The royal administration, out of the de Lacy lordship granted by Henry II in 1172.
Later changes: Split in two by the Counties of Meath and Westmeath Act of the Irish Parliament: the east kept the name Meath. The 1898 Act also changed its boundaries.
Sources disagree. The Meath article gives the split as 1542; the Westmeath article and Counties of Ireland give 1543.
The Norman earls of Ulster divided their own territory into counties; in 1333 the earldom is recorded as seven. They are not counted as part of the Crown’s shiring, and when they were constituted is not known.
A ‘county’ of the Norman Earldom of Ulster; the 1333 list of the earldom’s counties includes Antrim. Counties of Ireland notes these earldom counties are not reckoned part of the Crown’s shiring.
Later changes: Belfast was made a county borough by the 1898 Act; its North East Liberties of Coleraine went to Londonderry in 1613.
Gap: Both sources say the date it became a county is not known. It was already a recognised division when Perrot shired Ulster.
Formerly: Dun, also Ladcathel (1333)
Like Antrim, a county of the Earldom of Ulster before the Tudor shiring; the 1569 shiring act’s 1570 commission dealt with the Ards, Clandeboye, Dufferin and other territories in the area.
Gap: Counties of Ireland says the date Antrim and Down were constituted is unknown.
From 1543 the Crown pushed the county system over Gaelic Ireland: Meath split, Laois and Offaly planted under Mary, Connacht shired by Sir Henry Sidney, and Ulster mapped into counties by Sir John Perrot from 1584. An Irish act of 1569 was passed ‘for turning of Countries that be not yet Shire Grounds into Shire Grounds’. Much of Ulster stayed counties only on paper until after 1603.
The Irish Parliament’s Counties of Meath and Westmeath Act 1543, which cut the Gaelicised west off Meath, with a new shire town at Mullingar.
Sources disagree. The Meath article gives 1542.
Formerly: King’s County (1556 to 1922; still the legal name in land deeds)
An act of the Irish Parliament in Mary I’s reign, after the Earl of Sussex’s conquest of the O’Connors. Named for Philip II of Spain, king of Ireland by marriage to Mary.
Later changes: Called Offaly from the Free State. The county article notes no act ever formally renamed it; the Local Government Act 2001 simply lists it as Offaly.
Formerly: Queen’s County (1556 to 1922; still used in title deeds)
The same 1556 act under Mary I: Leix, Slewmargy, Irry and part of Glenmaliry, from the O’Moores.
Later changes: Called Laois from the Free State; as with Offaly, no act explicitly changed the name.
Made from the O’Rourke territory within Roscommon (West Bréifne).
Sources disagree. Counties of Ireland credits Sir Henry Sidney. The Leitrim article says ‘English Deputy Sir John Perrot’ ordered it in 1565, but Perrot was not Lord Deputy until 1584, so one of the two is wrong about who.
Formerly: Thomond
Sir Henry Sidney, who turned the kingdom of Thomond into the county of Clare and put it in Connacht, using the Shannon as the line.
Around 1600 it became a separate presidency under the Earls of Thomond, and returned to Munster after the Restoration in 1660. The county article dates the name Clare to 1590.
Later changes: Gained part of the judicial county of Galway (Mountshannon area) under the 1898 Act.
Sir Henry Sidney, in his shiring of Connacht.
Later changes: Boundaries changed by the 1898 Act; Galway town, a county of a town, was abolished in 1898, recreated in 1986.
The county article says it was formed in 1585 by Sir Henry Sidney but did not take effect until the Nine Years’ War ended in 1603. Counties of Ireland has Sidney shiring Connacht, Sligo included.
Later changes: Boundaries changed by the 1898 Act.
Sources disagree. Counties of Ireland puts Sligo in Sidney’s shiring of Connacht but gives no year; the county article’s 1585 is not reconciled with it.
Counties of Ireland has Sidney shiring Connacht into Galway, Mayo, Roscommon and Sligo. The county article dates its formation to 1585, with boundaries following the Mac William Íochtar lordship.
Later changes: Boundaries changed by the 1898 Act.
Made from the O’Farrells’ Annaly, then part of Westmeath, and placed in Connacht.
Sources disagree. Counties of Ireland gives 1583; the Longford article says ‘officially shired in 1586’.
Formed from the O’Reillys’ East Bréifne and moved from Connacht to Ulster ‘from 1584’, following the composition of Bréifne; part of Sir John Perrot’s Ulster scheme.
Shired by order of the Crown in 1585, joining Tír Chonaill with the lordship of Inishowen; one of Perrot’s Ulster counties. It existed largely on paper until after 1607.
Later changes: What became the city of Derry was part of Donegal until 1610; the North West Liberties went into County Londonderry in 1613.
Sir John Perrot, when the MacMahon rulers of Airgíalla agreed to come into the Kingdom of Ireland.
One of the seven Ulster counties of Sir John Perrot, which existed mostly on paper until after the Nine Years’ War.
Gap: Neither source gives a year. The county article says nothing about its shiring.
One of Sir John Perrot’s seven Ulster counties.
Gap: Neither source gives a year, and the county article does not cover it.
One of Sir John Perrot’s seven Ulster counties.
Later changes: Lost the barony of Loughinsholin to the new County Londonderry in 1613.
Gap: Neither source gives a year.
Wicklow in 1606, and Londonderry, made out of Coleraine and pieces of three neighbours, in 1613. By 1616, Counties of Ireland says, almost every county had been delimited; Tipperary, still in the Ormond palatinate, was the exception.
Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy, after the Byrnes and O’Tooles were subdued; carved from Dublin and Carlow. Approved in 1578 but not carried out.
Sources disagree. The county article calls Wicklow ‘the last of the traditional counties to be shired’. Counties of Ireland says ‘one of the last’, and County Londonderry was formed in 1613.
Formerly: County Coleraine
County Coleraine was one of Perrot’s Ulster counties. In 1613 it was merged with Loughinsholin (from Tyrone), the North West Liberties of Londonderry (from Donegal) and the North East Liberties of Coleraine (from Antrim), and renamed for the London livery companies and Derry.
Later changes: The city was detached as a county borough under the 1898 Act.
The thirty-two did not stay fixed. The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 gave each administrative county an elected council, changed the boundaries of Galway, Clare, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Waterford, Kilkenny, Meath and Louth among others, and cut the cities of Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Limerick, Derry and Waterford out as county boroughs. County Dublin was abolished in 1994 and divided in three. In Northern Ireland the county councils were abolished in 1973 and the six counties no longer serve as local government areas. In 2014 the Tipperary ridings were reunited, and Limerick and Waterford cities merged with their counties.
Wikipedia’s Counties of Ireland, which rests largely on Caesar Litton Falkiner’s 1903 paper for the Royal Irish Academy, and the history section of each county’s own article, read in October 2026. Where the two give different years or different men, both are shown.