Plantations of Ireland - Long-term Results

Long-term Results

The Plantations had a profound impact on Ireland in several ways. The first was the destruction of the native ruling classes and their replacement with the Protestant Ascendancy, of Protestant landowners originating from Britain, and most of them from England. Their position was buttressed by the Penal Laws, which denied political and most land-owning rights to Catholics and to some extent to Presbyterians. The dominance of this class in Irish life persisted until the late 18th century, and it voted for the Act of Union with Britain in 1800.

The present day partition of Ireland into the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland is largely a result of the settlement patterns of the Plantations of the early 17th century. The descendants of the English and Scottish Protestant settlers largely favoured a continued link with Great Britain and after 1801 with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, whereas the descendants of the native Irish Catholics wanted Irish independence. By 1922, Unionists were in the majority in four of the nine counties of Ulster. Consequently, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, these four counties – and two others in which they formed a sizeable minority – remained in the United Kingdom to form Northern Ireland. This new state contained a sizable Catholic minority, many of whom claimed to be descendants of those dispossessed in the Plantations. The Troubles in Northern Ireland are therefore in some respects a continuation of the conflict arising from the plantations.

The Plantations also had a major cultural impact. Gaelic Irish culture was sidelined and English replaced Irish as the language of power and business. Although, by 1700, Irish remained the majority language in Ireland, English was the dominant language for use in Parliament, the courts, and trade. In the next two centuries it was to advance westwards across the country until Irish suddenly collapsed after the Great Famine of the 1840s.

Finally, the plantations also radically altered Ireland’s ecology and physical appearance. In 1600, most of Ireland was heavily wooded, apart from the bogs. Most of the population lived in small townlands, many migrating seasonally to fresh pastures for their cattle. By 1700, Ireland’s native woodland had been decimated, having been intensively exploited by the new settlers for commercial ventures such as shipbuilding. Several native species such as the wolf had been hunted to extinction. Most of the settler population now lived in permanent towns or villages, although the Irish peasantry continued their traditional practices. Moreover, almost all of Ireland was now integrated into a market economy — although many of the poorer classes had no access to money, still paying their rents in kind or in service.