The restoration to his native land of the long-exiled Gerald of Kildare, and of the chief O’Connor Faily are the only two gracious acts for which Ireland has to thank Mary Tudor. That her religious persecutions did not extend across the Channel was no merit of hers. In Ireland there were no Protestants to persecute. The Irish Catholics, always friends of toleration, gave help and shelter to many of those  who had fled from England to escape the religious tyranny that prevailed there.

Of all the evils and miseries which afflicted Ireland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, none certainly caused suffering so widespread or produced results so evil as what is called ” the Plantation Policy.” It was during Mary’s reign that this policy may be said to have begun.

Henry VIII had hoped, by inducing the chiefs to hold their lands from him, and by conferring titles on some of them, to make them instrumental in the Anglicising of their people, and the conversion of these into loyal subjects of the Crown.

These hopes had not been realised. The chiefs remained chiefs still. Conn Bacach might be Earl of Tyrone to the English Government; to his Ulster clansmen he was ” O’Neill “—holding the position and authority that his ancestors had held before him. And as ” O’Neill” he acted. Any attempt on his part to introduce English customs, dress or language, or to inculcate any duty of obedience or feeling of loyalty to a stranger King would not only have failed utterly, but would have increased the comparative unpopularity which had resulted already from his dealings with the foreigner, imperfectly as these dealings were understood.

Since then this means of extending the English influence had produced so little result, and the policy of mere violence seemed, for reasons already explained, inadvisable, a third course, that of planting English colonies in the country, had been suggested by more than one of Henry VIII’s ministers. The plan seemed to offer many advantages.