Arrangements Regarding the Irish Inhabitants
Above : Illustrating Picture Of The Civil War
The Act for the settling of Ireland, which passed the English Parliament in August 1652, divided the inhabitants of Ireland into classes, according to the degree to which they were, or were supposed to be, implicated in the lately suppressed rebellion.
First came a list of 105 persons, including most of the surviving leaders, who were condemned by name to death. The number executed under this clause was small. Most of those who had taken a prominent part in the actual fighting, on either the Confederate or the Royalist side, had escaped abroad, or had surrendered and obtained pardons. The less prominent persons received minor punishments. Those who had served against the Parliament, but in a lower grade, were suffered to remain in Ireland.
Their estates would be confiscated, but they should receive others equal in extent to one-third of what they had lost. As regards these classes no distinction in the matter of religion was made. Many of those condemned by name to death, as Ormond and Inchiquin, were Protestants. The most sweeping clause of the Act was that which followed.
All Catholics who had resided in Ireland during the period of the Rebellion and Civil War (1641-1650), and who could not prove that they had borne ” constant good affection ” to the Parliament, were to forfeit a third of their estates absolutely, and for the other two-thirds should receive compensation in land wherever the Parliament might direct.
A Catholic, in order to escape forfeiture, was required to show that he actually had given assistance to the Parliamentary forces or authorities. Even to have lived in ” rebel quarters,” that is to say in a district held by the Confederates or the Royalists, was held to be a bar to ” innocency.”
Now practically every part of Ireland had been, at some period of the war so held, and the inhabitants had, of necessity, remained, because they had nowhere else to go, and submitted to the authority of the ” rebels,” because they had no force to oppose it, should they have desired to do so. Thus it happened that to prove ” innocency ” or ” good affection to the Parliament” was, in the vast majority of cases, impossible.
In September, 1653, all Irish Catholics not adjudged ” innocent,” and whose property exceeded the annual value of £io, were ordered to remove across the Shannon into Connacht and Clare, and not, on their peril, to be found east of that river after the first day of May 1654. The poor who were suffered to remain must learn English and bring up their children as Protestants. When this decree, terrible almost as a sentence of death, was made known, a wail of despair arose from the destined victims.
Remonstrances and protests of innocence, prayers for at least delay, followed. Very seldom were these petitions listened to. Now and then there was a respite of perhaps a couple of months, for a man to gather in his crops or for an invalid to recover or to die, but, as a rule, the slightest grace was refused. A Commission was appointed to inquire into the cases of those who had been deemed transplantable, to decide to what class they belonged and consequently to what number of acres in Connacht they could lay claim.
When they had crossed the Shannon another Commission was
to assign them the land on which they should settle. Connacht was,
owing to the poor quality of the land there, rather sparsely peopled, and, especially as it would be regarded as of small importance whether or not the portion assigned to a transplanted family was sufficiently large to afford subsistence, it was expected that there would be sufficient space to accommodate in some sort all the miserable exiles who, according to the often quoted phrase, were to choose between it and—Hell.
The same measure that was given to the rural population was meted out also to the townsfolk ; to all, that is, who were Papists. They were to be cleared out, and English Protestants invited to take their places. In spite of the offer of very favourable terms, English buyers did not appear, or appeared in very small numbers, while the banishment of the Catholic traders was ruinous to the towns themselves ; in so far, that is, as it was carried out; for neither these nor many other decrees were very extensively or very strictly obeyed.
As might have been expected, many of the Irish, especially of the younger men, rather than go to Connacht preferred to leave Ireland altogether. Great numbers joined the Spanish army. Others fled to the woods and became tories. Others again, feeble and despairing, wandered about the lands that had once been theirs. These, when captured, were sent as slaves to the West Indies, or, in some instances, hanged.