This
was also the time of the Reformation and Lowland Scots were accepting
of Presbyterianism. King James instituted a series of ecclesiastical
reforms which included the change from the Presbyterian to the
Episcopal form of church government. Many of the Presbyterian
ministers favored the migration to Ireland to end a return to
Catholicism as had happened under Queen Mary I.
In
defiance of this, Cahir O’Doherty of Inishowen led an uprising
from north Donegal in 1608. He captured both Derry and Strabane
before advancing into mid-Ulster. O’Doherty was killed near
Kilmacrennan on July 5th and the uprising was over soon afterward.
Other Ulster chieftains like O’Hanlon in Armagh and McMahon
in Monaghan had joined in the rebellion but, following Cahir’s
death and the failure of the effort, their lands were also declared
confiscate.
Of
Cahir’s death and the Plantation of Ulster, the “Four
Masters” wrote, “He was cut into quarters between Derry
and Cuil-mor, and his head was sent to Dublin to be exhibited;
and many of the gentlemen and chieftains of the province, too
numerous to be particularised, were also put to death. It was
indeed from it, and from the departure of the Earls we have mentioned,
it came to pass that their principalities, their territories,
their estates, their lands, their forts, their fortresses, their
fruitful harbours, and their fishful bays, were taken from the
Irish of the province of Ulster and given in their presence to
foreign tribes; and they (the Irish) were expelled and banished
into other countries, where most of them died.”
The
plans for the Ulster Plantation were the most ambitious undertaken
to date and involved the confiscation of three million acres,
or about 30% of Ireland. The Ulster land confiscations were directed
almost exclusively at the Gaelic lords and their supporters who
had been defeated at Kinsale: O'Neill, O'Donnell, O'Reilly, O'Hanlon,
O'Doherty and others.
The
native Irish were to be taken from the Province of Old Ulster
in the counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Tyrone, Donegal, Cavan,
Fermanagh, and Londonderry, and Derry (formerly Coleraine), and
moved into segregated areas. The confiscated land was to be granted
at low rents to English and Lowland Scots settlers in portions
of one to two thousand acres. These colonists were required to
rent the land to Protestant tenants who would cultivate it and
defend it against the native Irish.
The
first to be granted land were two Scottish landlords from Ayrshire,
Hugh Montgomery, Sixth Laird of Braidstone, and Sir James Hamilton
in 1606. By 1610, a detailed and rigidly controlled plan for the
settlement of Counties Armagh, Donegal, Cavan, Fermanagh, and
Londonderry had been developed and put underway.
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