Scots
have been drifting across the narrow waters of the Irish
Sea into counties Antrim and Down for generations. As
long ago as the 13th Century, mercenary soldiers fought
all over Ireland, in return for areas of land.
However
Scottish migration in the 17th Century, especially during
the Ulster plantation, was the most prolific.
The
plantation was initiated by King James I, in 1610, and
was designed to "plant" protestant settlers
in Ulster to quell Catholic Irish clans from rebellion.
Around 200,000 made the short journey, 21 miles at its
nearest point, between 1605-1697.
In
doing so, the Ulster Scots were born.
By the 17th Century, Scotland was awash
with religious and social persecution. Anger against church
taxes and intolerant policies had been festering for years;
politics and religion were at times inseparable.
Witchcraft
was especially targeted with merciless justice. After
a family row with her brother in law, Margaret Barclay
from Ayrshire, made comment that she hoped the boat in
which her brother in law was due to sail in, would sink.
Unfortunately for Margaret, the ship sank.
Her comments were enough to have her tortured until she
confessed to being a witch and to admit that her dog was
the devil. Even though she subsequently pleaded that she
had only confessed to the "charges" because
of the severe torture, she was still convicted, strangled
and burnt to death.
Thomas
Ross, former minister of Cargill, in Perthshire, had gone
to Oxford to study. In a moment of madness he wrote a
libel on the Scottish nation, and fixed it to the door
of St Mary's Church. It spoke in scurrilous terms of the
people of Scotland, demanding that the King should banish
all Scots from his court.
He
was extradited to Edinburgh, where, 'his right hand was
first struck off, then he was beheaded and quartered,
his head being fixed on a prick at the Nether Bow Port
and his hand at the West Port'.
Although
the stories above are enough to make any sane person want
to emigrate, it wasn't the main reason that Scots came
to Ulster. High inflation, in the 16th Century, due to
successful agricultural yields, led to an abundance of
food for export. This success only benefited land-owning
classes, which led to friction with their tenants and
sub-tenants.
Hunger
and poverty meant that the less well off, especially the
people of the over populated Lowlands, were forced to
move for political, religious, and most importantly, economic
reasons.
Gaelic
Ireland, before plantation, was a patchwork of independent
kingdoms each ruled by a chieftain and bound by a common
set of legal, social and religious traditions. Ulster,
in the north, had always been the largest area under Gaelic
rule since medieval times.
Expeditions
by the English to complete its conquest during the late
16th Century, and the forced plantations already underway
in southern Ireland, caused Ulster chiefs to upgrade their
military strength.
They
achieved this by 'arming the peasants' and by importing
regiments of soldiers from the Highlands and Western Isles
of Scotland, at great expense. The constant fighting not
only kept armies on the move, but turned villages into
herds of refugees with their livestock - transferring
out of war-torn areas under the leadership of their local
lords.
James
VI of Scotland became James I of England on the death
of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603. James I was under pressure
from Scottish suitors for a share of the valuable land
in Ulster. The fact that almost half of the land was granted
to the Scots was a bitter pill to swallow for the Englishmen.
It was the English who had lost thousands of men during
a great rebellion lead by the Earl of Tyrone, Hugh O'Neill
and his allies in the north (the 9 years war 1594-1603).
O'Neill eventually negotiated a conditional surrender
to the English, and was allowed to return to his lands.
However,
just four years later, in 1607, Hugh O'Neill and the Earl
of Tyrconnell fled Ulster in what was to become known
as "The Flight of the Earls". This sudden desire
to leave (O'Neill's son, and even Tyrconnells's pregnant
wife were left behind) has remained an intriguing historical
puzzle ever since.
Some
historians would argue they left due to persecution -
the English Lords not trusting the previously rebellious
troublemakers. Another point of view has the Earls up
to their neck in treason, and yet another argument has
the Earls fleeing to seek military help abroad, before
returning to wage war on the English.
Ulster
was known as the "fountain head" of rebellion,
with the Ulster Irish proving a formidable foe for the
English. King James saw the Irish Earls' departure as
the perfect opportunity to strengthen the Protestant population
with fresh English and Scottish settlers, while at the
same time putting an end to revolt in Ireland forever.
After
the flight of the Earls, the native Irish Catholics had
designs on a new Ulster too. Indeed the Irish were to
be given a substantial stake in the new settlement by
the Crown, hoping that support for their exiled Lords
would evaporate.
In
reality, only somewhere between a quarter and fifth of
the confiscated land in Ulster was returned to local inhabitants.
Scots and English settlers were granted almost an identical
share of the land in the Ulster Plantation. English officers
had hoped that they would have received the lion's share
of any Plantation in Ulster. The Scots had their King
in London at just the right time.
The
official Plantation period was from 1610 to about 1630.
It covered the modern counties of Londonderry, Tyrone,
Fermanagh, Armagh, Cavan and Donegal. Counties Down and
Antrim were excluded because successful private plantations
had already taken place there.
One
such operation is the unlikely combination of two dubious
Scottish gentlemen and a bankrupt Irish chief, who owned
much of the rich northern part of County Down. Sir Hugh
Montgomery was an Ayrshire landowner who had served as
a mercenary in the French army. His fellow Scot and partner
in the enterprise was James Hamilton, a Dublin University
don who was also a government spy.
The
Irish chief was Conn O'Neill (kinsman of Hugh O'Neill),
Lord of Clandeboye, who had been imprisoned in Carrick
Castle for rioting, in 1604. Montgomery agreed to help
O'Neill escape, in return for a share of his estates as
a reward.
The
plan involved smuggling ropes, hidden inside hollowed
out cheese, into the dungeon. Having a relationship with
the jailer's daughter helped with the plot too!
Montgomery
and Hamilton received a third of Conn's estates each as
a reward. O'Neill and Montgomery began to enlist Scottish
settlers for new estates.
They
invited the lesser lairds and substantial farmers, who
in turn brought under-tenants, craftsmen and labourers.
This
network of hand-picked people, who would also act as peace
makers and military commanders between themselves and
the Irish, and whose family were sub-tenants and servants,
was to influence the plans for the official Ulster plantation.
The
six plantation counties - Donegal, Londonderry, Tyrone,
Fermanagh, Armagh and Cavan, were divided into three categories:
land to be granted to English and Scottish undertakers,
land to be granted to servitors (usually English government
officials) and 'deserving' Irish, and finally, land belonging
to or to be granted to the established church and Trinity
College.
The
undertakers were required to settle English or Scots on
their lands at a rate of 24 per 1,000 acres, to provide
defences and build stone houses and bawns, within three
to five years or risk hefty fines.
If
you didn't conform to Protestantism or if you were Irish,
you couldn't rent these lands. The other two categories
had no pre-conditions, and here the Irish natives could
stay.
(BBC
Legacies, 2003)
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