Editing Counties of Ireland (section)

===Demarcation of counties and Tipperary===
Throughout the Elizabethan era and the reign of her successor James I, the exact boundaries of the provinces and the counties they consisted of remained uncertain. In 1598 Meath is considered a province in Hayne's ''Description of Ireland'', and included the counties of Cavan, East Meath, Longford, and Westmeath.<ref name="Falkiner"/> This contrasts to [[George Carew, 1st Earl of Totnes|George Carew]]'s 1602 survey where there were only four provinces with Longford part of Connaught and Cavan not mentioned at all with only three counties mentioned for Ulster.<ref name="Falkiner"/> During Perrot's tenure as [[Lord President of Munster]] before he became Lord Deputy, Munster contained as many as eight counties rather than the six it later consisted of.<ref name="Falkiner"/> These eight counties were: the five English counties of Cork, Limerick, Kerry, Tipperary, and Waterford; and the three Irish counties of Desmond, Ormond, and Thomond.<ref name="Falkiner"/>

Perrot's divisions in Ulster were for the main confirmed by a series of inquisitions between 1606 and 1610 that settled the demarcation of the counties of Connaught and Ulster.<ref name="Falkiner"/> [[John Speed]]'s ''Description of the Kingdom of Ireland'' in 1610 showed that there was still a vagueness over what counties constituted the provinces, however, Meath was no longer reckoned a province.<ref name="Falkiner"/> By 1616 when the [[Attorney General for Ireland]] Sir [[John Davies (poet, born 1569)|John Davies]] departed Ireland, almost all counties had been delimited.<ref name="Falkiner"/> The only exception was the county of Tipperary, which still belonged to the palatinate of Ormond.<ref name="Falkiner"/>

Tipperary would remain an anomaly being in effect two counties, one palatine, the other of the Cross until 1715 during the reign of King [[George I of Great Britain|George I]] when an act abolished the "royalties and liberties of the County of Tipperary" and "that whatsoever hath been denominated or called Tipperary or Cross Tipperary, shall henceforth be and remain one county forever, under the name of the County of Tipperary."<ref name="Falkiner"/> Between 1838 and 2014, County Tipperary was divided into two [[Riding (division)|ridings]]/counties, [[North Tipperary]] and [[South Tipperary]].