Plantations in Ireland

The policy inaugurated by Queen Mary of establishing English colonies in Ireland, as a means of extending the authority of the Crown, seemed to her sister worthy of imitation. She gave permission, on request, to certain private individuals to ” plant ” specified portions of land, which, if they succeeded in their enterprises, they could hold from the Crown. The rights of the Irish proprietors who were to be dispossessed were not considered.

. To follow the course of the war would be tedious. By constant raids the lands were wasted and ruined. The clansmen when worsted, withdrew to the hills and woods, whence they emerged, as opportunities offered, to slay and spoil the settlers. Eighteen times the O’Mores rose in rebellion.

Fitzwalter was furnished with precise instructions in regard to the carrying out of the scheme by which Leix and Offaly were to be planted with English settlers. Only a part of the boggy western lands was to be reserved for the native Irish. All, English and Irish alike, were to hold their lands from the Crown, paying rent and dues and conforming themselves to the English laws. The settlers were not to sell their estates, or any part of them, to the Irish, nor to take them as tenants.

The purchase or use of firearms was forbidden to the Irish. It was not to be expected that this wholesale confiscation, unjustified, in the case at least of most of the lands involved, by any legal right* would be tamely submitted to, even by people far less warlike than the O’Mores and O’Connors. At first indeed things seemed to go smoothly. In September i,,c6) Donough and Barry O’Connor made their submissions to the Deputy, confessing, if the English account is to be believed, that they had wrongfully held the lands of Offaly, and promising to receive thankfully whatever estates should be granted them and their people. Connell Og, the O’More chief, followed their example.

The Deputy, with the easy optimism of the newly-arrived English official, believed that all the trouble was over, and that nothing now remained but to arrange details. He was soon undeceived ; though the disasters which followed were doubtless, to some extent, due to his own treachery. In violation of a safe conduct, he detained Donough a prisoner, and only released him on the strong protest of the Earls of Kildare and Ormond, who had been his securities.