Post Chaise Companion. Or Traveller’s Directory through Ireland. Containing a new and Accurate Description of the direct and principal Cross Roads, with particulars of the Noblemen and Gentlemen’s Seats, Cities, Towns, parks, Natural Curiosities, Antiquities, Castles, Ruins, Manufactures, Loughs, Glens, Harbours, &c. &c. Forming An Historical & Descriptive Account of the Kingdom. To which is added, a Dictionary, or Alphabetical Tables. Showing the distance of all the Principal Cities, Boroughs, Market and Sea Port Towns, in Ireland from each other. The Fourth Edition, Corrected and Enlarged. With an Entire new Set of Plates. Dublin: Printed & published by J. & J. H. Fleming, (1803). Pp, [xxvii], 660 + index. Rebound in quarter calf, marbled boards. Light occasional spotting to text, otherwise a very good and clean copy.

Illustrated with four engraved plates of views ( 2 folding) & a large folded map of Wilson’s Modern Travelling Map of the Roads of Ireland.

The Post-Chaise Companion of Ireland was first published by W. Wilson in 1786. It represented one of the most complete guides of its type and a most useful reference work prior to the advent of the railways. The post-chaise was the most familiar and widely used means of road transport. This commonly took the form of a closed-body travelling carriage, which together with a pair or four horses and driver was hired from stage to stage.

The Companion’s primary aim was to provide the traveler with distances between the various market towns of Ireland. All aspects of manufacture that were present along the routes were covered, predominantly woolen and linen mills. The Companion also describes the rural landscape through which the post-chaise roads meander and often remarks on the principal crops and state of the peasantry. It also adequately describes some of the principal sites of antiquity.