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Irish Stew |
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New beginnings?
By the early 18th Century, Ulster had endured a century of war and instability. The Ulster Scots, along with the rest of the Ulster people, went back to working the land.
The low cost of labour and raw materials in Ulster meant that its wool industry flourished, in comparison to its English counterpart; flax, the raw material grown to produce linen, grew well in the damp, fertile soil in the north of Ireland.
Slowly Ulster prospered, but again it was mainly the landlords who benefited from the good times. Rents were increased as the general economy grew and the positiveness, felt by the people of plantation Ulster, was replaced with restlessness.
of 1704, added to the woes of the predominantly Presbyterian, Ulster Scots. The new laws meant that everybody had to take an oath acknowledging loyalty to the established English church.
Although the Penal laws in their wider scheme were meant to eradicate Roman Catholics and the "further growth of popery", the laws were seen as just as discriminatory to the Ulster Scots, as they were to their Catholic Irish neighbours in Ulster.
The final straw was a severe drought which started in 1714 and lasted until 1719. Lack of grazing land, poor Flax crops and a disease called rot, which killed off sheep, meant a sudden halt in Ulster's growth.
At the same time, stories were filtering through from the English colonies in North America about the masses of fertile land available to those with spirit and adventure to make the voyage across the Atlantic.
After the failed promise of the "Ulster Eden", the Ulster Scots were only too glad to go, some for religious reasons, some for commercial reasons, but most chose hope over poverty.
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