Plantation of Ulster - Ulster Before The Plantation

Ulster Before The Plantation

Prior to its conquest in the Nine Years War of the 1590s, Ulster had been the most Gaelic part of Ireland, a province existing largely outside English control. There were few towns, few roads and much of the country was thickly wooded.

Throughout the 16th century Ulster was viewed by the English as being "underpopulated" and undeveloped. An early attempt at plantation of the north of Ireland in the 1570s on the east coast of Ulster by Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, had failed (see Plantations of Ireland).

Many of the Gaelic Irish lived by “creaghting” (seasonal migration with their cattle) and as such, permanent habitations were uncommon. The wars fought between Gaelic clans and between the Gaelic and English undoubtedly contributed to depopulation. However by 1600 (before the worst atrocities of the Nine Years War) Ulster's total adult population according to Perceval-Maxwell was only 25,000 to 40,000 people.

The 16th century English conquest of Ireland was made piece by piece and starting in the reign of Henry VIII (1509–1547) and only being completed after sustained warfare in the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603). During these wars the force of the semi-independent chieftains was broken.

The Nine Years War of 1594-1603 provided the immediate background to the Plantation. A Confederation of northern Gaelic Chieftains, led by Hugh O'Neill resisted the imposition of English government into Ulster. Following an extremely costly series of campaigns by the English, including massacre and use of ruthless scorched earth tactics, the Nine Years War ended in 1603 with the surrender of Hugh O'Neill's and Hugh O'Donnell's forces at the Treaty of Mellifont. The terms of surrender granted to the rebels were generous, with the principal condition that lands formerly contested by feudal right and Brehon law be held under English law.

However, when Hugh O'Neill and other rebel chieftains left Ireland in the Flight of the Earls (1607) to seek Spanish help for a new rebellion, Lord Deputy Arthur Chichester seized their lands and prepared to colonise the province in a plantation. This would have included large grants of land to native Irish lords who had sided with the English during the war, for example Niall Garve O'Donnell. However, the plan was interrupted by the rebellion in 1608 of Cahir O'Doherty of Inishowen, who raided the city of Derry. The brief rebellion was suppressed by Sir Richard Wingfield. After O'Doherty's death his lands in Inishowen were granted out by the state, and eventually escheated to the Crown. This episode prompted Chichester to expand his plans to expropriate the legal titles of all native landowners in the province.