In 2013 the Ulster Historical Foundation was commissioned by the Ministerial Advisory Group – Ulster-Scots Academy / Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure to carry out research into the granting of the Ulster charters and to produce an exhibition, which was launched in October 2013 in the City Hall in Belfast (one of the towns to receive a charter in 1613). Accompanying the exhibition, a booklet and folding map/heritage trail were produced and freely distributed.
All of the products created as part of the project were beautifully illustrated with a range of photographs and reproductions of contemporary maps drawn from many archives, including the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, the British Library, Trinity College Dublin, and The National Archives (UK). The Foundation’s Research Director, Dr William Roulston, undertook the historical research alongside two noted historians of the early seventeenth century, Dr Brendan Scott and Dr Philip Robinson, while Mark Thompson and Jill Morrison carried out the design work.