Irish History
And
The Fighting Irish
And
The Fighting Irish
The
Plantation of Ulster was planned in 1598 with the process of colonisation taking place in 1609.
All the estates of the O' Neills, the Earls of Tyrone, the O' Donnells of Tyrconnell and their chief supporters were ' confiscated. ' The estates comprised an estimated half a million acres of land. ( waste, woodland and bog were uncounted ) in the counties of Donegal, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan, Coleranine ( Londonderry ) and Armagh in the northern Irish province of Ulster.
Prior to its conquest in the Nine Years War of the 1590s, Ulster had been the most Gaelic part of Ireland, a province existing largely outside English control. An early attempt at plantation in the 1570s on the east coast of Ulster by Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, had failed.
Within a decade after the " Flight of the Earls " came the Ulster Plantation - a scheme of fatal and far-reaching consequence for the Island ever since. It was the Sixth James of Scotland who, after he became James I of England, perpetrated this crime. The land-greedy and gain greedy among his Scotic fellow-countrymen, and among the English, were the instigators. Upon Ireland the covetous eyes of such people were ever turned.
Prior to its conquest in the Nine Years War of the 1590s, Ulster had been the most Gaelic part of Ireland, a province existing largely outside English control. An early attempt at plantation in the 1570s on the east coast of Ulster by Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, had failed.
Within a decade after the " Flight of the Earls " came the Ulster Plantation - a scheme of fatal and far-reaching consequence for the Island ever since. It was the Sixth James of Scotland who, after he became James I of England, perpetrated this crime. The land-greedy and gain greedy among his Scotic fellow-countrymen, and among the English, were the instigators. Upon Ireland the covetous eyes of such people were ever turned.
James I of England
The flight of the Earls proved a welcome exscuse for the wholesale robbing of the clans. It was a very simple matter to find that all the Northern Chiefs had been conspiring to rebel - against England. Hence they were traitors - to England. And naturally their estates were forfeit and for distribution among James' hungry followers. That the clan-lands did not then, or even at any time, belong to the chieftain, but to the whole clan community, was a matter of no consequence. According to English law and custom it should belong to the people's lords ( chiefs ). And if ' civilised ' law did not obtain in Ireland, it must be imposed wheresoever British profit could be reaped from such imposition.
The English Lord Lieutenants, Sir Arthur Chichester and the Attorney General, Sir John Davies, were the instruments under James, for giving effect to the great Plantation.
The English Lord Lieutenants, Sir Arthur Chichester and the Attorney General, Sir John Davies, were the instruments under James, for giving effect to the great Plantation.
Sir Arthur Chichester
The lands of the six counties of Donegal, Derry, ( then called Coleraine ) Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan and Armagh - four million acres - were confiscated. ( The lands of the three remaining Ulster counties, Antrim, Down and Monaghan were bestowed upon Britons at other times ) The true owners, the natives, were driven like wild fowl or beast, from the rich and fertile valleys of Ulster, which had been theirs from time immemorial, to the bogs and the moors and the barren crags - where it was hoped that they might starve and perish.
Above and below right, having owned the land for hundreds of years the Irish natives were exiled to the remote barren parts of Ireland where they were left to starve.
English and Scotch Undertakers ( as they were called ), and Servitors of the Crown, scrambled for the fertile lands which were given to them in parcels of one thousand five hundred, and two thousand acres.
