Plantation of Ulster

“ The aim of James L when he devised his "Plantation Scheme," was to give encouragement to men who were willing and able to transform the wilderness of Ulster into a garden. Many such men appeared, and thanks to the wisdom of the Monarch, thousands of our northern acres are now rich with fertility. ”

“ The "Plantation of Ulster," or introduction of English and Scotch settlers into the north of Ireland between 1610 and 1620, was the beginning of a long process of immigration into that country. But far the most important plantations as an outlet for trade as in every respect were those made on the coast of North America and in the West Indies. The Virginia and the Plymouth Companies played a part in the early settlement of these colonies, but they were soon superseded by the crown, single (p. 192) proprietaries, or the settlers themselves. ”

“ Like the Castle of Tully, in the same county, of which we gave a view in a recent number, this castle affords a good example of the class of castellated residences erected on the great plantation of Ulster by the British and Scottish undertakers, in obedience to the fourth article concerning the English and Scottish undertakers, who “are to plant their portions with English and inland-Scottish tenants,” which was imposed upon them by “the orders and conditions to be observed by the undertakers upon the distribution and plantation of the escheated lands in Ulster,” in 1608. ”

“ It was incorporated by James I. It owed its importance mainly to the Irish Society, which was incorporated as the Company for the New Plantation of Ulster in 1613. Though fortified only by an earthen wall, it managed to hold out against the rebels in 1641. There are no remains of a former priory, monastery and castle. ”

“ The actual plantation of Ulster was carried out on a different principle, and the forfeited country was treated as a sheet of white paper, to be divided between the new settlers and the native Irish as most convenient to the government, and the consequence was that the natives were driven away from their homes and arbitrarily settled in spots which were either inferior to their old habitations, or which, at all events, seemed to them to be inferior. ”

“ The unique character and the success of the Ulster plantation were due less to the original planters than to the Calvinistic Scots who found there a refuge from Laud and the Stuarts, and like the Pilgrim Fathers regarded themselves as a people chosen to root out the Amalekite and Philistine natives. Like the founders of New [pg 261] England, too, their relations with the natives were far worse than those of the southern planters in Ireland, and the southern planters in North America. ”

“ To which we must remember to add, that the natives’ grants of lands were in the most barren and rocky parts of Ulster. As a people we are mainly pastoral, and this was more conspicuously the case in the days of the Plantation, as everyone who has read Spenser’s View of Ireland will remember. The only hope of doing much with nearly all of the land given to the natives lay in tillage, a thing which the Irish of that day had a very imperfect knowledge of. Hill mentions one case where the ownership of the land continued on all right: it was in the grant to Tirlagh Oge O’Neale’s widow ”

“ Archbishop Synge estimated that by 1715 not less than 50,000 Scottish families had settled in Ulster during these twenty-seven years. It should be also mentioned that "before the Ulster plantation began there was already a considerable Scottish occupation of the region nearest to Scotland. These Scottish settlements were confined to counties Down and Antrim, which were not included in the scheme of the plantation. Their existence facilitated Scottish emigration to the plantation and they were influential in giving the plantation the Scottish character which it promptly acquired. ”

“ Six counties, comprising half a million acres, formed the Ulster Plantation. The great majority of the colonists sent thither by James were Scotch Lowlanders, but among them were many English and a smaller number of Highlanders. These three peoples from the island of Britain brought forth, through intermarriage, the Ulster Scots.
The reign of Charles I had inaugurated for the Ulstermen an era of persecution. Charles practically suppressed the Presbyterian religion in Ireland. ”

“ Ne Plus Ulster.—Mr. Chamberlain seems to find the heart of the Irish Question in Ulster. Does he expect to find its solution there? He appears to set little store by the wishes of those not inconsiderable portions of Ireland which, as he says, “do not form a portion of the Ulster plantation.” All other parts, even of the favoured province, “though geographically part of Ulster, are not parts of what we know as political Ulster.” This certainly narrows the Irish Question. But does it simplify it? We have all heard of those who are “more Irish than the Irishmen themselves.” ”

“ The Ulster certificates are lost; but there can have been but few Ulster landowners transplanted, for, owing to the plantation under James I., most of that province belonged to Protestants who were dispensed from transplanting; and few of the Catholics could have come within those classes who were entitled to receive lands in Connaught.
For the Connaught and Clare landowners possibly no certificates were issued, as it was easy to find out particulars about them, on the spot; at any rate none have survived. ”

“ New influences, however, were setting in which affected every claimant to property in Ulster. The King, finding the North swept of its Chiefs, and knowing naught of the practices of the Deputy, determined to root Scottish and English settlers in the seats of the stubborn septs. A Plantation would solve the Irish difficulty. Chichester differed from his Majesty as to the future of the Province, and saw in its desolation a means of personal aggrandisement. ”

“ Three years later, the Irish Society for the New Plantation in Ulster was formed, and to it was granted the towns of Coleraine and Londonderry, with seven thousand acres of land and the fisheries of the Foyle and the Bann. The society was pledged to enclose Derry with walls, and these were laid out and built in 1617. They were strong and serviceable, as may be seen to this day, and so wide that a carriage and four could drive along the top of them. ”

“ The idea of a plantation or colonization of Ulster, which was put forward as an answer to this question, is due mainly to Sir Arthur Chichester, the Irish lord deputy, its object was to secure the better cultivation of the land and to strengthen the English influence in Ulster by granting estates to English and Scottish settlers. ”

“ Even agriculture has been helped by the proximity of towns where all, down to the labouring classes, have money to buy with. The district which centres about Portadown is to-day foremost of all Ireland for the culture of fruit and flowers, though neither climate nor soil specially favours it. One beauty that Ulster has far more generally than any other province is the flower-bordered cottage. ”

“ The survey for the great Ulster plantation was entrusted to him, with others, in 1609, and was so well performed that in 1616 the king proposed to employ him in a renewed survey of the same province. But he complained in 1611 that he had had no share in the division, and prayed for a ‘competent allowance’ for the rest of his life. The prayer was answered on 3 Dec. 1612 by the issue of letters patent appointing him director-general of fortifications in Ireland for life. ”

“ Dense crowds cheering and shouting, and waving hats and handkerchiefs, occupied every coign of vantage, and though the Queen had only four hours to spend in the city, she contrived, under competent guidance, to see many of the more interesting places and institutions which illustrate the strong character of the mixed race whose energy, ability, pertinacity, and industry have made Ulster, with her unkindly soil and climate, the richest province in Ireland. ”

“ It is those weaving looms which utilize the product of the 110,000 acres of flax fields in Ulster. Out of nineteen ships of over 300 tons annually built in the docks of the island eighteen come out of the Belfast wharves. It is, in short, the maritime gate of Irish import and export—the insular suburb of Liverpool and Glasgow.
As a consequence, signs of prosperity are showing themselves everywhere. The public walks are vast and carefully kept, the houses well built, the shops substantial and elegant, the educational establishments important and richly endowed. ”

“ There is nothing very striking from a scenic point of view in its environs. Its present shockingly uprooted condition, and the almost total lack of interest the peasantry living in its immediate vicinity take in it, have a depressing effect on anyone interested in Irish literature, history, or antiquities. During the writer’s last visit to this historic spot he met a small farmer whose potatoes were planted over part of the obliterated fosse and rampart of this famous stronghold of Ulster. ”

“ But all that mountainous headland is inhabited by folk who still keep the Gaelic speech alive among them, and whose remote forbears owned in far distant times the overlordship of Ireland's most famous champion, when Ulster had a pagan chivalry, the Red Branch Circle, which is to Irish legend what the story of Arthur's knighthood is to British romance, or the tale of the Nibelungs to Germany. ”

“ Ulster (1,617) , the northern province of Ireland, is divided into the nine counties of Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan, and Tyrone, and has an area of 8560 sq. m.; became an English settlement in 1611, and was largely colonised from Scotland; it is the most Protestant part of the island, though the Catholics predominate, and is the most enterprising and prosperous part; the land is extensively cultivated, and flax growing and spinning the chief industries. ”

“ Indeed, to those who set out to judge Irish political conditions without troubling themselves about anything more ancient than their own memory can recall, the most fundamental factor of all—the line of cleavage between Ulster and the rest of the island—- is more than unintelligible. ”

“ Every one is aware that the agriculture of the North has always been in a sounder state than that of the South and West, [21] and in a subsequent chapter I hope to account for that circumstance. But as it happens even the proportionate obliteration of the very small holdings in Ulster, viz: of those between 1 and 5 acres has been 19 per cent greater than what it was in Leinster, within 43⁄4 per cent of what it was in Munster, only 81⁄2 per cent below what it was in Connaught, and almost identical with the general average for the kingdom. ”

“ Mike told me that the airship was not built for Irish weather, but he afterwards remedied this defect, as we shall see.
When we reached County Fermanagh we began to realize Ireland’s agricultural possibilities. Ulster is a different world from Connaught. The landscape is rolling, covered with cultivated farms. The houses are often two-storied, slated, and neatly kept. There are large barns and every appearance of prosperity. The picture presented to us in Ulster was not so romantic as in Connemara, but it is more like living. ”

“ In October the possibility of a settlement on the basis of the exclusion of North-East Ulster is indicated in "Second Thoughts"; Mr. John Redmond is shown driving four pigs—Connaught, Munster, Leinster and S.W. Ulster—through the gate of Home Rule. ”

“ They point to the way in which Ulster has, under the Union, been able to develop itself; with no richer soil, no better climate, and no greater natural advantages than other parts of Ireland, the energy, ability, and true patriotism of the people have [pg 238] enabled them to establish and encourage commerce and manufactures which have brought wealth and prosperity to Ulster whilst the other Provinces have been stationary or retrograde. There cannot be a better instance of the different spirit which animates the two communities than the history of the linen industry. ”

“ Ulster is, on the whole, very hilly, and it is easy to see how strong it must have been when the woods were still uncut, when there were practically no roads, and when drainage had not yet been thought of. The most inaccessible forest was that of Glenconkein, about Draperstown in Londonderry; but the whole province was a stronghold, and a mere enumeration of woods and bogs would be useless. Connaught also is a land of mountains and bogs, and was once a land of woods. It was about the Curlews that the hardest fighting took place, and the northern part of Leitrim was very difficult to attack. ”

“ There is still another peculiarity of the Irish mountain system which strikes all tourists—the highland chains, for the most part, rise near the coast, and follow its course, thus making it one of the boldest and grandest in Europe, while some detached groups, such as the Galtee and Slieve Bloom ranges in Munster and Leinster, the Curlews in Connaught and Slieve Snacht (Snowy range) in Ulster, seem to be independent formations. ”

“ It is true, if we ascend to the next class of farms, viz: those between 5 and 15 acres, or if we take the farms of all sizes which have been extinguished in the four provinces during the last five and twenty years, Ulster—as might have been expected—will show a more favourable percentage, the proportionate decrease being 14·2 per cent in Ulster, against 15·1 per cent in Leinster, 29·9 per cent in Munster, and 22·6 per cent in Connaught ”