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Irish Stew |
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Restless natives
The Irish watched as their ancestral homeland was handed out to the influx of foreigners. Any areas that were given to Scottish and English settlers were cleared of Irish, although in some cases the new tenants kept the Irish on to work the land.
However not every Irishman was averse to the new system; after years of fighting and a nomadic existence, many welcomed the security, if somewhat punctilious, of steady work and stability.
Some 280 "deserving Irish", those who were not implicated in recent rebellions against the English, did become landowners, receiving over 90,000 acres. Although, when that is compared to the 360,000 acres given to the English and Scottish planters, the figure seems exceptionally small.
By the 1630s, around 40,000 settlers had arrived, but out of a total population of between 200,000 and 300,000, which meant that the Irish still had a vast majority. The previously powerful and respected Gaelic Lords were getting increasingly frustrated.
The lords were a volatile bunch at the best of times but, in pre plantation era, they were kept in line by the chieftainships. They had lost the Nine Years war (1594-1603) to the English, who, along with the Protestant Scottish settlers, had stolen their land. Their religion had been eroded and their fellow Irishmen were nothing more than cheap labour to the planters.
After hearing of a rumour that the Scots were going to rise up and rid Ireland of all Catholics, a great rebellion of the native Irish began on the September 23, 1641. Ulster felt the full force of Irish wrath, brought on by years of resentment and bitterness.
Since the beginning of the plantation in 1610, most of the Scottish planters were systematically unarmed by the English, fearful of an Ulster Scots army ready to help in their homeland if Scotland went to war against England, which it did, by the time of the Irish rebellion, in the autumn of 1641.
Stories of terrible violence and retribution against the settlers have been passed down through the generations. Although in most cases these are greatly exaggerated, it is clear that thousands of Scots met gruesome deaths.
Scottish reinforcements lead by Major-General Robert Monro, a battle-hardened veteran of the Thirty Years War (1618-48), landed at Carickfergus, in April 1642. His `no prisoners` attitude helped drive the Ulster Irish back but the rebellion still raged on for another seven years throughout Ireland.
Potted history
Ulster became an unstable battlefield, in a state of "on -off" war, over the next 100 years. Cromwell's English army, 1650 -1660, cut a swathe through Ireland, Ulster included, and crushed the rebellious Irish.
From 1660, a lull in fighting for 25 years gave a ravaged Ulster a chance for economic growth, feeling the positive effects of colonial expansion abroad. Trade was buoyant and agriculture was getting back on its feet.
Then in 1685, a Catholic King, James II was crowned. However the nobility of England quickly lost faith in their new King and his obsessive pro Catholic policies. They turned to a protestant, Dutch, ally - William of Orange, whose military strength prompted King James II to flee to France, in February 1689.
But, James returned a month later, in March 1689. He landed at Kinsale in the south of Ireland with a large army to rally the Irish, and so the Williamite wars began.
Ulster was now the epicentre of religious war in Europe, with all eyes fixed on the battle between Protestant and Catholic leaders. Louis XIV of France, who had ambitions of holding power in Europe and of making Catholicism the religious standard, put his money and troops behind James during the war in Ireland.
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