The Beginning of Plantation

. 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.

the Midland septs, whose proximity to the Pale gave them peculiar opportunities for harassing its inhabitants, none had proved more troublesome than the O’Connors I of Oifaly and the O’Mores of Leix. Offaly comprised the eastern part of King’s Co, with the middle-west of Kildare and the north of Queen’s Co.; while the much smaller territory of Leix consisted of the cast, south-east and middle of Queen’s Co.

In the Geraldine rebellion, Brian, the reigning O’Connor chief, had played a prominent part, till finally compelled to a submission. In respect of a part of his lands, O’Connor paid certain dues to the Earl of Kildare. He was therefore regarded by the English Government as Kildare’s vassal, and these lands held to be forfeit to the Crown by feudal law, owing to the treason of his suzerain.