Ebook A Guide to the County of Wicklow, 1827

The county of Wicklow, one of the smallest in Ireland, lies directly south of Dublin, and contains an area of 660 square miles, being thirty-three miles in length by twenty in breadth, with a population amounting to 110,767 persons. It is bounded on the east by the Irish Sea; on the west by parts of Carlow, Kildare, and Dublin counties, and on the south by Wexford. There are three baronies and four half-baronies in this county, viz. Ark-low, Newcastle, Ballynacor, baronies; - the half-baronies are, two of albot's-town, one of Rathdown, and one of Shillelagh. The partition of Wicklow into baronies was probably subsequent to that of the other counties in Ireland; for, although the boundary of the county was virtually assigned by the prescription of limits to the surrounding shires, which occurred in the reign of King John, yet we find that the dignity of a county was withheld from this division of Leinster until 1605.

The ancient inhabitants of this part of Ireland, according to Ptolemy, were the Cauci; hut the uncertainty of the division in the old maps is such, that the Cauci and Menapii may both have inhabited the country afterwards called Wickenloe.