August
It will readily be understood that official carelessness and official blunders were not likely to be less flagrant when only the transplanted Irish were concerned. Many of the exiles died of want while waiting for the judgment of the Commissioner on their cases. Others discovered, when they desired to take possession of the Connacht lands assigned them, that these had already been granted to others. People of the highest rank were reduced to utter destitution. Viscount Ikerin wandered about .” a miserable object of pity.” ” Viscount Roche’s daughter died for want of requisite accommodation.”
To ascertain the amount of land actually confiscated under the Cromwellian Settlement Scheme and the number of persons actually transplanted, is rendered extremely difficult by the evasions, frauds and mistakes already alluded to, as well as by the fact that many decrees were made which were never carried out. The latest authorities consider that some 11,000,000 acres—somewhat more than half the acreage of Ireland—was confiscated, including the Connacht lands “setout” to the transplanted. Of this, however, much was subsequently occupied by Irish tenants.
The transplanted are said to have numbered about 50,000 persons ; whilst those banished, sent to the plantations, or who left the country of their own accord, were about 40,000. This then accounted for 90,000 out of a population of something over three quarters of a million. These figures can, however, be considered only as rough approximations.
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August
Catholic Education
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Of the grievances from which the Irish Catholic laity suffered, they appear to have felt none more acutely than the difficulty, under the existing laws, of obtaining a liberal education for their sons. During the reign of Elizabeth, this had also been complained of, but now that the English authority had extended itself over the whole island, the state of the case had become worse. Investigations were made, and schoolmasters who had not conformed to the State religion were ordered to close their schools, however efficient these might be. It is certain that, in this as in other matters, evasions were often practised with success.
The great schools which had long existed in many of the principal towns, as Waterford, Limerick, Galway and Kilkenny, continued to flourish. To what extent they were ” reformed ” it is °ften difficult to say ; certainly, amongst the men trained in them during the later sixteenth and the earlier seventeenth centuries, were found many steadfast champions of Catholicity. In these schools the classical languages, and especially Latin, were the chief subjects of instruction but, in several, Irish, the native tongue, was also cultivated.
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July
This very connection of the Reformed doctrines with the imposition of foreign rule and a foreign tongue proved, in effect, one of the greatest obstacles to their progress, and joined together the Irish, both the natives and the descendants of the colonists, in resistance to them. Hitherto here had been amongst the Irish little of that love of country as a whole which we have agreed to call Nationality. The O’Neills, the O’Donnells, and the rest lived and died, not for Ireland, but for their clan. Now gradually, under pressure of foreign interference, a broader Patriotism grew up, and entwined itself so closely with Catholicism, that the two ideas became, to the majority, inseparable.
Elizabeth found, therefore, in Ireland for her religious policy many and ardent opponents ; while her supporters were few, and, except where their private interests were concerned, lukewarm and unenterprising. This was true of both the Anglo-Irish and the Celtic population, of the clergy and of the laity. At the time of her accession twenty-six bishops and four archbishops occupied the Irish Sees. Very few of these ” conformed ” ; that is to say, took the Supremacy Oath and agreed to the new religious legislation and all that it involved. Nor, we gather, were the inferior clergy more compliant, although, in their case, we have to rely on general statements and indirect evidence, as no figures are available.
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