William Francis Thomas Butler

“ The truth seems to be that the whole of the six counties were confiscated; that O'Neill of the Fews, Conor Roe Maguire, and one or two O'Neills in Tyrone got large grants, and that about 280 other Irish proprietors had between one-eighth and one-ninth of the rest divided among them. And the surveyors when they speak of acres took into account only what they considered good land, wood, waste, and rough pasture being thrown in; so that to obtain a true estimate of what each man obtained we must multiply the acreage actually given by seven. ”

“ Rightly or wrongly the Crown in these counties had granted the clan lands to the chiefs. These latter, it was hoped, would in turn grant estates to the chief men under them. In time they might have done so, but there is clear proof that up to 1607 they had neglected or rather refused to do so. Even Neal Garve O'Donnell, when complaining that the promises made to him had not been kept, declared "that he acknowledged no other kind of right or interest in any man else, yea the very persons of the people he challenged to be his. ”

“ The Scots however took little foothold in Cavan and Fermanagh. The emigration of Presbyterians to America in the eighteenth century must have seriously weakened the Scottish element, as that of the 19th century has weakened the Irish. Woodburn holds that 200,000 people left Ulster for America between 1700 and 1760. At the present day if we take religion as the distinctive test we should estimate the Irish element in the six counties at 60 per cent. ”

“ For, while few or none of the dominant race in the plantation counties are likely to have become Catholics, it is quite certain, as surnames show, that very many of the old Irish have in the course of centuries become Protestants. ”

“ But in the course of a generation or two it is probable that greed would have been stronger than old custom. [36] The Scotch chiefs in the Highlands, taking advantage of royal grants, reduced all their clansmen to the condition of tenants at will. The Mac Donnells of Antrim, the Mac Carthys of Muskerry and other Irish chiefs to whom grants of all the clan lands had been made seem to have followed the same course. ”

“ From Scotland came many, and from England not a few, yet all of them generally the scum of both nations,—who from debt, or breaking, or fleeing from justice, or seeking shelter, came hither, hoping to be without fear of man's justice in a land where there was nothing, or but little as yet, of the fear of God. ”

“ Few Irish were to receive estates there, so that it was hoped that the territory might become an almost exclusively British settlement. [23] In the original scheme certain Irishmen were to have got 8,000 acres in this county on the petition of the Lord Deputy; but only 6,000 acres were actually allotted to them. [24]
Of course this attempt at segregation failed in the long run. [25] The new landowners could not cultivate their demesne lands without Irish labour; Irish tenants offered higher rents than could be obtained from British ”

“ In 1641 about 270 Catholics held land in five of the six counties, there being no certain return for Armagh. Of these only five or six were in Derry. ↑ There is a grant 10th of Jas. I. to Captain John Sanford of mountains, woods and bogs in the six plantation counties, except such as heretofore been granted by the King by Letters Patent. ↑ These are Hardinge's figures; he gives the total area as 3,630,000 acres. ↑ Conor Roe Maguire is said to have got the whole barony of Magherastephena estimated at about 7,000 acres. It really has over 61,000 English acres. ”

“ The Deputy decided in favour of the clansmen. 1606 seems the true date of the Letter and the journey, although they are dated 1607 in Morley's Ireland under Elizabeth and James I. ↑ For instance the Rev. Kingsmill Moore in his Irish History for Young Readers implies that the six counties were the lands of the Earls. ↑ Bright says "Three quarters of the worst land was restored to the Irish"; O'Connor Morris and Froude have substantially the same statement.
The Spectator habitually includes Antrim and Down in the "Plantation Counties." ”

“ Ireland under the Stuarts: but I cannot verify his reference. ↑ Both O'Donnell and O'Neill had on persuasion of the Deputy and Council named such persons as they thought proper to be freeholders in 1605 (Calendar of State Papers, 1605, p. 320, and following) . ”