Strong(e)/Strang(e) Research in Britain and Ireland

Researching Strong(e)s and Strang(e)s in Britain and Ireland; 2nd Edition (Rootsweb)


THE PLANTATIONS OF IRELAND
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CHAPTER III

THE PLANTATIONS OF IRELAND

N: (25 August 1997)

R: (Tuesday 30 December 2003)



Click on the indicated links to "jump" to particular discussions; (please note, you may have to use your browsers "back" function to return here):

Background to the Plantation of Ulster:
Kings & Queens in 1550's:
Munster in 1560-80's:
The Garrison in Monaghan:
Flight, Forfeiture, & Plantation:
The London Companies:
Conditions precedent to Plantation Grants:
Trinity College Lands, and Sir Francis Gofton:
Plantation settlements; construction & defense:
Further Plantations in Leinster & Connaught:
Economic Consequences:
Footnotes:



Background to the Plantation of Ulster: The idea of planting colonies of English settlers in Ireland was not new in the early years of the 17th century. It had been tried before. In the time of Baron de Struiguil, the settlement was tried from the top down, by imposing an English aristocracy upon the social and economic structure of Ireland. In the interim between Strongbow's invasion of Ireland in 1169 and the mid 16th century, this first settlement was gradually absorbed into the Irish society. 1

See Plantations in Ireland 1550-1610, for a map showing the successive plantations of Ireland between 1550 and 1640. What follows here is a brief discussion of the Plantations of Ireland as they took place in the 16th and early 17th centuries.

During the reign of Queen Mary (who was married to King Phillip of Spain) in the 1550's, created King's and Queen's Counties, now renamed Counties Leix and Offaly. 2 It was during this latter settlement period that the LeStrange family was established in King's County. Sir Richard L'Estrange, son of Sir Thomas L'Estrange, High Sheriff of Norfolk, founded this branch of the family, at Moystown. His elder brother, Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, received his knighthood in Ireland about 1562, 3 probably during the war between the Earl of Ormonde and Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond. 4 See Lestrange.

Settlement was tried in the Province of Munster, in the southwest of Ireland, successively in the 1560's and 1580's following the rebellion of the Earl of Desmond and forfeiture of his lands. 5 It had even been tried in Ulster on a small scale in the 1570's. All such previous plantations had been relative failures, collapsing for lack of human support or capital, or else being physically wiped out by the rebellion of those who had been dispossessed to make room for the settlers. 6 The Public Record Office, Dublin, has portions of the Desmond Survey, made after the Desmond Rebellion of 1579-1583, relating to seizures in portions of Counties Limerick, Kerry, Cork, Waterford, and Tipperary. 7 It may be that the records of Strange and Strong families in these counties can be traced to the reallocations of lands following these seizures.

The English Garrison in Monaghan. The province of Ulster in the north was largely independent of English control in the 16th century. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I the English made a concerted effort to bring Ulster under their control. A Captain Willis established an English garrison at Clones monastery in Dartrey Barony in 1585, and in 1589 Sir William Fitzwilliam defeated the McMahons of Monaghan and established a garrison at Monaghan Town. By 1590, land grants were being made to various English settlers. However, at the Battle of Clontibret in 1595, The O'Neill chieftain, Hugh O'Neill, defeated 1,750 English soldiers under Henry Bagenal, and the English presence in Monaghan was removed. 8.

Sir John Berkley re-established the garrison at Monaghan in 1602 after the defeat of O'Neill. The Lord Deputy, Chichester, granted lands next to Monaghan Town to members of the garrison in 1606. The first English landlords in Farney Barony were Essex, an absentee landlord, and Sir Edward Blayney, who brougnt in Scots settlers in 1624. Some remaining Irish Landlords, like the McMahons, brought in English settlers in order to raise the hard currency needed to pay their own rents. By 1640, less than half of Monaghan remained in Irish hands. See: The Shirley Estate, and The Leslie Estate. 9

Flight, Forfeiture, & Plantation: As noted, in the waning years of Queen Elizabeth I's reign, Hugh O'Neil, Irish Catholic Earl of Tyrone, mounted a revolt against the English crown, and was soundly defeated in 1603. Scotland's King James VI ascended the English throne as James I in the same year. Though pardoned by the crown and allowed to retain his lands in Ulster, O'Neil and his ally Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, fled Ireland in September, 1607. This "Flight of the Earls" was followed by an English determination to forfeit their lands by declaring them traitors. The English were bound to supplant Catholicism in the north of Ireland by "planting" large numbers of Protestant Scots and English on these properties. 10 King James "VI and I" thoroughly encouraged the Scots in the endeavor. 11

The counties of Donegal, Tyrone, Coleraine, Armagh, Cavan and Fermanagh were deliberately planted with Scots and English beginning in 1610. In consequence of the earlier land grants in Monaghan, and out of some political deal making with the original Irish lords of Monaghan, the McMahons, that county was formally left out of the Plantation scheme. 12 That does not mean Monaghan was not settled by Scots and English brought in by the new landlords, much as was being done in the rest of Ulster.

The London Companies: Capital for the Plantation was provided through the "City of London Companies". 13 In exchange for their investment, the London Companies were given control of the plantation, [see map: Plantations in Ulster 1609-1613], and in what became County Londonderry, including Coleraine and the Liberties of Derry. The London Companies had evolved from the Middle Ages as workmen banded together to regulate trade, to protect themselves from royal edicts restricting wages, and to formulate ethical standards of apprentice training, performance and reliability. The guilds so formed played an important part in medieval commerce, but they eventually were rendered obsolete by the Industrial Revolution. Similar tradesmen's companies existed throughout pre-industrial Europe. 14 Some of them continue to exist today in a purely formal mode. In the City of London there is still a Company of Plumbers. The Shoemakers also have a continuing organization. 15

These ancient London Companies, formed into the "Irish Society", were to provide a model for a later manifestation of British culture in the late 18th century...the Peep-of-Day Boys, which later became the Orange Lodges. 16 The early guilds of London were organized along lines which manifest themselves today in the organization and rituals of lodges of Freemasons and Orangemen, which are strikingly similar. The lodges provided a unifying organization and principles of service rendered to the community (as seen by the membership), to the welfare of the country, and other important considerations. 17 It should also be obvious that their services in the cause of the British Crown government helped result in a proscription by the Roman Catholic church hierarchy against membership in such secret societies. The Orange Lodges were formed after a falling out between the Peep-of-Day Boys and the United Irishmen in 1795.

In the early 17th century, however, these guilds of tradesmen represented what existed of a mercantile economy. They represented a source of capital aside from the aristocracy upon which King James I, always in short supply of funds and feuding with a parsimonious parliament, 18 could draw in funding the plantation of Ulster. The London Companies who participated were twelve in number, including the Salters, Vintners, Haberdashers, Goldsmiths, Ironmongers, Grocers, Skinners, Mercers, Drapers, Merchant Taylors, and Clothworkers. 19 A special body which later became known as "The Honorable The Irish Society" was set up in 1610 to represent the City of London companies in the matter. A charter in 1613 incorporated the area of the County of Coleraine into the County of Londonderry, adding to it the town and district of Derry and the barony of Loughinsholin. 20

A discussion by Robert Key is particularly explanatory: 21

" The City of London, with it's great capital resources, had undertaken the task of civilizing...the whole County (of Derry). (The company's role, as part of what became known as the Irish Society) was similar to that of the Virginia Society for the colonizing and civilizing of America, which was active at precisely the same time in history. The land was divided among the wealthy City Companies--drapers, salters, fishmongers, haberdashers, and the rest. (There is still a Draperstown and Salterstown in County Londonderry.) The plan, at least on the drawing-board, was that almost all the land of the County of Derry should go through these City companies to "Scottish and English settlers who would not be allowed to take Irish tenants. A small proportion of the county-- about five per cent- was to go to former soldiers who were allowed to take Irish tenants: the rest -- about ten percent-- was allotted to the native Irish, former occupants of the whole of it, who now had to pay the Crown double the rent the settlers paid. And it was largely to the less fertile lands on the hills that the native Irish were to be officially confined.

"In the other confiscated counties, other 'undertakers' of the settlement were found. But the principles of land allocation were similar. Here too the Irish were supposed to be allotted only the less fertile lands, though rather larger proportions were given both to them and to those former soldiers who were allowed to take Irish tenants.

"However, drawing-board schemes involving human beings seldom work out as planned. The City companies and others who undertook to implement the settlement often allowed the native Irish to stay on the land despite the new regulations, either as much-needed labourers for the settlers, or as rent-paying tenants who could be charged high rents without incurring the capital investment needed to bring in cross-Channel settlers.

"Settlers certainly came in. By 1622 there were about 13,000 of them , half English and half Scots, but the Irish still lived all around them. Thus from the start the main political purpose of the plantation was weakened. The chance of totally colonizing the forfeited counties was lost and the native population were not brought neatly into the "civilizing conformity" of the English Protestant cultural pattern.

"The really effective plantation of Ulster took place from a different source altogether through an originally small privately-organized Protestant settlement of Scots that had begun on the Ards peninsula of Ulster's east coast a few years earlier. There, Scotland lies only just across the water. For centuries, before the Reformation, Scots had been coming across the North Channel and settling in that part of Ireland, usually becoming indistinguishable from the Gaelic Irish people among whom they settled. But just before the 1610 plantation- In 1606- a private settlement had been undertaken by two Scottish Protestant adventurers named Montgomery and Hamilton after a deal with the local Gaelic chieftain. This eastern Protestant plantation of Ulster prospered rapidly and became the bridgehead by which, for the rest of the century and beyond, individual Scottish settlers flocked to Northern Ireland. They spread outwards from there through the town of Belfast, over the whole area of Antrim and Down.. They even spread right across Ulster to fill out the gaps in the official plantation of the west. The geographical distributions of Protestant and Catholic in Northern Ireland today still reveal clearly the two separate settlements of Ulster of over 300 years ago.

"The success of the eastern Ulster settlement meant that the overwhelming number of settlers in Ulster were Scots rather than English. More significantly still, they were Presbyterian rather than Anglican, and when they first arrived, were being penalized by the English Church as dissenters. [ed.note: This was the same time in history that the pilgrim colonizers of Massachusetts left England to escape similar penalization as (small "p" to represent doctrine rather than church affiliation) presbyterian puritans.]

"Thus, gradually and overwhelmingly, the English and Scottish Protestant settlement of Ulster was established. Ulster, once the most Gaelic Irish and Catholic province of all, now had a mixed population of opposed interests and beliefs, often so closely entangled with each other that streets even in the same town would be named "Scotch quarter' and 'Irish quarter'".

Conditions precedent to Plantation Grants: The six Ulster counties of Armagh, Coleraine, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Cavan, and Donegal were handed to "undertakers", in "free and common socage". Each undertaker received areas ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 acres on condition that they were themselves to be residents, that they settled English or Scottish families as tenants upon their lands, and undertook to bear arms and to build defences. 22.

The Ulster plantation did not work out as intended. In two vital areas practice rapidly deviated from theory or plan: Segregation of the Gaelic natives from the settlers proved impracticable; and the size of the units of land actually granted to the undertakers bore little or no relation to the rule. Many of the land-grants were reckoned on the basis of an incorrect assumption about conversion of the traditional Irish land unit to the English unit of acreage, it being assumed that one Irish "balliboe" equalled 60 acres. Twelve balliboes equalled one Irish "ballybetagh"; the English land surveyors assumed the ballybetagh equalled one thousand acres. However, the balliboe was actually reckoned in terms of value or productivity, not as a fixed measure of land area. Since differing lands had vastly differing rates of productivity, a balliboe might vary widely, as would a ballybetagh, in area from one locality to another. 23.

Since it was easier to displace the old Gaelic owners of the land on the basis of established estates, many holdings reckoned in terms of balliboes and ballybetaghs were transferred intact to the new English or Scots owners. As a result many of these transferred estates were much larger than reckoned by the English land "surveyors" based upon their rule of thumb explained above. The estate holdings turned out to be so large in much of Ulster that undertakers were obliged to rely upon natives staying on to tend the land. This was reinforced by the fact that the native Irish were willing to pay much higher rents for land that was underdeveloped by English standards. 24.

The categories of grantees were defined as undertakers (about one hundred in all); servitors, or British army veterans; favored natives; the Church; and Trinity College, Dublin. All were expected to inculcate English 'civility' in Ulster. There were two further exceptional cases. The Lord Deputy, who already possessed vast estates in Antrim, was granted the barony of Inishowen, and the City of London companies took over Coleraine County, as noted, in exchange for sufficient large-scale capital to fortify towns and to engage in trade. 25.

The design of the plantation was to place the English and Scots undertakers on the best land. The servitors were to take up the border "marches", where they could keep an eye on the native Irish; the latter were isolated in location and often given lesser sized and quality lots. Further, the Irish grants were often limited under English legal devices to less than permanent terms, e.g.., for the life of the grantee and his wife, only. This had the effect of dispossessing the native Irish landlords within a generation, and was psychologically depressing to them. The resentment experienced was heartfelt, and was to have disastrous effects in 1641. 26.

Trinity College Lands, and Sir Francis Gofton: As part of the Plantation of Ulster commencing in 1609, a huge area of Donegal from Inishowen to Ballyshannon was confiscated and granted to English and Scottish planters. The barony of Tirhugh in which many of the Strong families studied in this work originated was allocated in part to Trinity College, Dublin. Trinity College in fact did very well out of the Plantation of Ulster, receiving almost ten times as much land as had initially been allocated to it. See: Trinity College Lands. Large areas of land in this barony were also granted to the corporate towns of Ballyshannon and Donegal and to the Lord Deputy's Auditor, Francis Gofton. Gofton later sold his lands in south Donegal to Sir Henry Folliott, described in one article as being the "sadistic Governor of Ballyshannon". See: Ffolliott Estate.27

In neighboring Killybegs parish, the land was granted to Scottish planters, with the exception of 14 Ballyboes of lowland and 14 balliboes of upland belonging to the Church. The Churchlands were claimed by the new Protestant Bishop of Raphoe. By the spring of 1610 the final arrangements for the Plantation had been completed and the first civilian planters arrived in Killybegs. The remote and poor land of west Donegal was not attractive to any newcomer. Very few planters came over during the first ten years. Those who came brought the new Protestant faith with them, taking possession of the old parish church of Killybegs. A 1622 survey found that there were only 17 "British and Irish" people in the new town of Killybegs. 28.

Castle Rahan, Killybegs. Just to the east of Killybegs along Donegal Bay is a promontory known as St. John's Point. It is a six mile long spit of land protruding like a gnarled finger south-westward into the Bay. It has a considerable number of historic sites, and was apparently taken over by the English at the time of the Plantation. Castle Rahan, located on a promontory on the point, dated from the mid-fifteenth century. Confiscated, it was given to the Scots Planter, William Stuart, and then to John Murray, later Earl of Annandale, for whom one Herbert Maxwell was an active agent. See: Murray of Broughton Estate. The castle was garrisoned and held during the 1641 Rising (see next chapter) by local planters who were part of Sir Ralph Gore's regiment. 29.

Nearby, lay a twelfth century church, Killaghtee, which was taken over by the Planters on their arrival about 1610. It was used up for worship until the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The burial ground surrounding the church is still being used, and is well mintained by church authorities. 30. Castle Rahan and the Church at Killaghtee are significant in our examination of the history of Strongs in Donegal. In 1665, following the Restoration after the Close of the Cromwellian Commonwealth, a Hearth Money Roll was compiled for the Parish of Killaghtee which included Henry and George Strong. It is significant that these names are found in a parish where Murray of Annandale was landlord, for Annandale is in the Scottish Border shire of Dumfries, just across the border from the English shire of Cumberland... where large numbers of Strongs can be found in the records of the various local parishes of the Church of England. It seems possible that Murray of Annandale recruited Henry and George Strong from the Cumberland-Dumphries-Wigtonshire locale during the plantation, and they may have helped garrison Castle Rahan during the 1641 Rising.

The first Protestant Minister of Killybegs was William Hamilton. In the year 1619 he was living, with his family , in a newly built house "of clay and stone", near the ancient parish church of St. Catherine at the west side of Killybegs harbour. Although there were six thatched housed in this area at that time, the Hamiltons were the only people living there. This suggests that the native Irish had then been put off their holdings in that part of Killybegs. 31.

William Hamilton, the Minister, had a brother, James, who was "Constable of Killybegs" at this time. The Hamilton brothers reported the arrival of the Dutch pirate, Claes Campane, into Killybegs harbour to Captain Basil Brooke of Donegal Castle in April, 1628. Campane spent �1,000, and his men �500, "drinking and whoring" during their stay in Killybegs. On September 9,1631, James Hamilton leased two houses, a garden and two acres of land in the new town of Killybegs from John Murray. Murray of Broughton, in the southwest of Scotland, was the other land lord in Killybegs, besides the Bishop of Raphoe. Hamilton also leased the entire townland or ballyboe of Drumbeagh from Murray by the same deed. This James Hamilton was most assuredly the first of the Fintra Hamiltons who held that Estate for seven generations. A deed of 1669 describes James Hamilton as "late of Fintraugh" and gives his son, Alexander, a continuation of the lease of Fintra. See: Hamilton of Brown Hall Estate.32.

Having secured the 14 ballyboes of Killybegs, the Protestant Bishop treated them strictly in a businesslike manner. In 1638 he leased them to a County Tyrone clergyman named Archibald Erskine. The lease was for a term of 56 years, at an annual rent of �30. It is presumed Erskine rented the farms on the fourteen ballyboes to planter or Irish tenants. The lease apparently lasted the entire term; after it expired in 1699 the leasehold was transferred to Brigadier Henry Conyngham of Mountcharles and Slane. See: Pakenham Estate. He was an ancestor of the present Lord Henry Mountcharles. The Brigadier was married to a sister of William Conolly, famous speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and known as the richest man in Ireland. See: Conolly Estate. 33.

Plantation settlements; construction & defense: The reality of the planters' experience is not easy to describe. One entry for Pynner's survey of 1618, describing a Londonderry estate taken up by the Vintners' Company and leased by them to an agent, Baptist Jones, Esquire, expresses the ideal in action:

"Vintners' Hall, 3,210 acres...is in the hands of Baptist Jones, Esq., who hath built a Bawn of Brick and Lime, 100 feet square, with two round Flankers, and a good Rampart, which is more than any of the rest have done. There are also within the Bawn two good Houses, one opposite to the other; the one is 70 feet long and 25 feet wide, the other is nothing inferior unto it. Near upon the Bawn he hath built 10 good English houses of cagework, that be very strong and covered with Tiles; the street very wide, and is to be commanded by the Bawn. All these are inhabited with English families and himself, with his Wife and Family be resident therein. There are divers other Houses built upon the land which are further off; and these do use Tillage plentifully after the English manner. He has made his full Number of Freeholders and Leaseholders; but he being gone into England, and tenants at the Assizes, I saw them not. There was good store of Arms in his House, and upon the land 76 men, as I am informed." 34.

The matter of defense was highly important. Brigandry by the native Irish practiced upon the settlers was common. A sense of geographic insecurity was inseparable from the plantations. Derry and Coleraine were the key settlements; Belfast hardly existed in those times, and Londonderry was central to the government planned settlements. There were many isolated farms and hamlets scattered throughout Ulster. 35.

From early on the settlers realized the importance of centering towns upon the settlemants. The classic plantation town involved fortification, houses of brick and lime as well as "cagework", and the central square. The walls of Londonderry were completed in 1618 after four years of building, making it one of Ireland's principal fortresses. It's plan was that of a distorted ellipse, like a battered shield. However, the walls were never really satisfactory, and the town remained vulnerable to attack from the river. 36.

Segregation of the native population remained vital. Catholics were not allowed to settle inside the walls of Londonderry. As a threatening majority, they colonized the "Bogside" outside the walls. But Catholics were allowed into Belfast as a small minority, and towns like Armagh and Cavan retained a strongly native complexion. Armagh, being on Church land, was allowed to take Irish tenants; they became shopkeepers and the town slowly developed a commercial ethos. 37.

Borough-making for political purposes was an important incentive in the establishment of towns. English law at that time provided established boroughs, or towns, with seats in Parliament, and with them went a certain degree of political power. But the primary consideration in the planning and layout of each was preparation for defence and decency, with English-style houses and provisions for church, markets, school and sometimes a prison. In Ulster, towns were often allotted functions disproportionate to their size, although their organization was not as sophisticated as Cork plantation towns such as Bandon and Mallow. Enniskillen followed the ideal pattern closely; Virginia, County Cavan, did not. 38.

Central to the plantation idea was the establishment of an urban network; towns provided profits and security for landlords, as well as centers for governmental administrative coherence. However, growth of the towns was slower than expected, for many reasons: lack of suitable land, poor siting initially, land profiteering in preference to mercantile activity. The great estates often never delivered the economic return expected. 39.

Too, the social conditions of the plantation were at variance with the plan. Not only were many Catholics allowed to continue in positions of prominence, but the settlement acquired a Scots rather than an English outlook. The Londonderry plantations failed to remove the native Catholic population, and came to rely too heavily upon them for labor. The English planters more often than not were absentees, while the Scots involved more residents, and included in their numbers many more small, independent farmers. These Scots had a certain radical mentality, owing more to their religious views than to the crown. They were austere, exalted and unbending, and also cantankerous, febrile and prone to hysteria and conspiracy theories. Settler defensiveness and intolerance fused with antiestablishment Presbyterianism to create a northern mentality very different from the providentialist philosophy of Boyle in the south. The Ulstermen believed they lived permanently on the edge of persecution. They gloried in covenanting against tyranny, and they were committed to a democracy that extended to the elect alone; an attitude that did not moderate with time. 40.

Further Plantations in Leinster and Connaught: The practical success of the plantations led to new plantations in Leinster and Connaught. In north Wexford, South Carlow, and the adjoining part of Wicklow, lands to the extent of 67,000 acres were seized by the crown and granted to new settlers. 41 In Leitrim, Longford, Westmeath, and King's and Queen's Counties, 385,000 acres were seized and distributed in the period 1614 through 1625. 42 Land hunger among the populous Scottish Lowlands and in the western counties of England gave a steady supply of immigrants. For the first time, a large part of Ireland was not only owned by alien landlords but was actively farmed by Scottish and English tenants. 43 It is from this time period that the first known records of Strongs in various of these counties date. See the Irish Strong Database .

Economic Consequences: As indicated above, the plantation "took" quite well in Antrim and Down. There, about 7,500 Scots and English had settled. The Scots had traded in the area for centuries; now Scots peddlers were commonplace in Ulster. By 1630 the Scots monopolized mercantile activity at Derry. Imports, at first mainly building materials, had shifted to clothing , hardware, foodstuffs, spices, tobacco, salt and wine from the Continent. Exports were, inevitably, linen yarn, beef, hides, tallow and wool; more irregularly butter, pork, salmon and cattle. Coleraine was a shipbuilding center., and Derru was a wool staple by 1621. Trade was expanding by 1640, though it was inhibited by a cash shortage that produced high interest rates and much reliance on barter. 44.

In 1608, Sir Thomas Phillips, who was then actively involved in the Plantation of Ulster, was granted a licence to distill whiskey by King James I. The word "whiskey", comes from the Gaelic words "uisce beatha", meaning "water of life". 45 Phillips' distillery at the village of Bushmills in County Antrim was the world's first licensed distillery. It is still there practising its art on a somewhat larger scale today, exporting it's wares worldwide. 46 By 1608, the art of distilling was already well established in Ulster and Scotland. The gaelic peoples seem to have mastered the art in the middle ages or before, and the Lowland Scots and Ulstermen learned well from them. As will be seen in a later chapter, the Ulstermen carried the art with them to the new world when a century or two later they helped colonize America. [See "White Lightning".]

Interestingly enough, the plantation in County Londonderry was viewed at the time as having had only limited success. Because many of the planters did not carry out the conditions laid down for them, the City of London was prosecuted in the Court of Star Chamber and heavily fined for its failures in implementing its undertakings. It's Ulster property was confiscated in 1637. 47 This did much to throw London more decisively on the Parliamentarian side in the ensuing Civil War. Parliament later reversed the decision against the City, and the Irish Society was restored and received a new Charter from Charles II. It has continued to own property and carry out duties in the county to the present day. 48 According to Robert Kee, its offices are located "in a calm and quiet little street close to the cathedral in the centre of the City of Derry...(The door is) painted purple, bearing a brass plate on which are engraved the words: 'The Honourable the Irish Society'". 49

In 1632, Sir Thomas Wentworth came to Ireland as Lord Deputy and in 1639, as Lord Lieutenant, was created Earl of Strafford. He attempted to make Ireland support its English Government and supply a surplus to the Crown. Land had been practically given away to the English by birth, and taxes were low. It was his attack on these factors that led to the prosecution of the London Companies mentioned above. In preparation for a new confiscation and plantation of Connaught and County Clare in Munster, Strafford established a Commission of Inquiry at Boyle in 1635, and summoned grand juries in the various counties, promising the members of the juries three-quarters of their own property in return for finding the King's title to all lands. The planned plantation failed to materialize when Strafford was recalled in 1639. The celebrated Strafford Inquisitions of 1635-1637 include the names and holdings of the land owners and tenants involved, and are of much genealogical interest. 50 However, few Strongs appear in the records from this period, and it is apparent that, the planned settlement not having taken place, there were few English and Scots introduced into the area.

The next great influx of Scots and English settlers came into Ireland following the English Civil War and the Irish Rebellion of 1641-1652, and brought the status of the Plantations of Ireland to their fruition as shown in 1703 Status of Irish Landownership. It should be noted regarding the latter image that the caption is misleading... the 1703 status of the plantation reflected far more than the influence of Cromwell, which essentially ended with his death and the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. The events of the 1689 Revolution had a huge influence on the redistribution of lands in Ireland prior to 1703. This influence on the settlement of Ireland will be explored in CHAPTER IV: "The Reformation, Covenantors & the 1689 Revolution".



Click on the indicated links to "jump" to particular discussions; (please note, you may have to use your browsers "back" function to return here):

Background to the Plantation of Ulster:
Kings & Queens in 1550's:
Munster in 1560-80's:
The Garrison in Monaghan:
Flight, Forfeiture, & Plantation:
The London Companies:
Conditions precedent to Plantation Grants:
Trinity College Lands, and Sir Francis Gofton:
Plantation settlements; construction & defense:
Further Plantations in Leinster & Connaught:
Economic Consequences:
Footnotes:



Footnotes:
A few words about the footnotes in this Webpage are in order. When I first began writing the book that became "Researching Strong(e) and Strang(e) in Britain and Ireland", 2nd Edition (Rootsweb) , I was writing for the traditional print format, and intended the documentation to be in the form of footnotes appearing at the end of each chapter. When I subsequently published the various chapters on the above website, the footnotes were presented in that format. However, as time went on, I found that it was easier to present the documentation of particular points immediately in the screen-text. Simply, it was easier to navigate to the documentation if it was immediately at hand, rather than having to go to the end of the webpage to find the documentation relied upon. Consequently, as my webpages have been added to and updated there are two different means of documentation provided: the "on-screen" text variety, and the traditional footnotes. Anyone curious as to the context in which the material was found may consult further with the references in the Bibliography.


1 Encyclopedia Britannica (1959), "Ireland", Vol.12, p.592, 602-605.
2 Robert Key, "Ireland, A History", Little, Brown and Co., Boston and Toronto (1982), p.40.
3 Burke's Peerage, "L'Estrange of Hunstanton", p.311-312.
4 Encyclopedia Britannica (1959), "Desmond, Gerald Fitzgerald", Vol.7, p.260-261.
5 Encyclopedia Britannica (1959), "Desmond, Gerald Fitzgerald", Vol.7, p.260-261.
6 Robert Key, p.40.
7 Margaret Dickson Falley, Vol.1, p.554.
8 Peadar Livingston, "The Monaghan Story", 1971; with credits therein to an earlier history by Mr. Evelyn Phillip Shirley, and "Parishes of Clogher", by Canon James E. McKenna.
9 Peadar Livingston, "The Monaghan Story", 1971; with credits therein to an earlier history by Mr. Evelyn Phillip Shirley, and "Parishes of Clogher", by Canon James E. McKenna.
10 E.J. Collins, "Irish Family Research Made Simple", Summit Publications, (1974), p.6; Robert Kee, "Ireland, a History", Little, Brown and Com- pany, (1982), p.40-42.
11 Encyclopedia Britannica (1959), "James I", Vol.12, p.876-878.
12 George Hill, "An Historical Account of the Plantation of Ulster", pp.50-59.
13 Seumas MacManus, "The Story of the Irish Race", The Devin-Adair Company (1921), (Fourth Revision, 1944), pps.405-407.
14 Herbert Heaton, "Economic History of Europe", Harper & Brothers, New York, revised edition, 1948; pp.198-212.
15 "The Role of Freemasonry", contained in a publication entitled "Free- masonry Salutes The Constitution", distributed by the Grand Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons of Washington. (1987)
16 Encyclopedia Britannica (1959), "Orangemen", Vol.16, p.844; "Peep-of- Day Boys", Vol.17, p.436.
17 "The Role of Freemasonry", cited above.
18 Encyclopedia Britannica (1959), "James I", Vol.12, p.877.
19 Margaret Dickson Falley, "Irish and Scotch-Irish Ancestral Research", Shenandoah Publishing House, Strasburg, VA (1962), Vol.I, p.555-556.
20 Encyclopedia Britannica (1959), "Londonderry", Vol.14,p.372.
21 Robert Key, pp.40-42.
22 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.60-61.
23 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.61.
24 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.61.
25 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.63.
26 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.63-64.
27 M. Kenny, "English Silver Coins, 1560-1640", Donegal Annual, Vol.XIII, No.4, 1980, p.491-492.
28 Patrick Conaghan, "Bygones...New Horizons on the History of Killybegs", privately published, Killybegs, 1989. p.104-105.
29 C. Conaghan, "The Antiquities of St.John's Point"; Donegal Annual,1977, p.53-55.
30 C. Conaghan, "The Antiquities of St.John's Point"; Donegal Annual,1977, p.53,56-57.
31 Patrick Conaghan, "Bygones...New Horizons on the History of Killybegs", privately published, Killybegs, 1989. p.106.
32 Patrick Conaghan, "Bygones...New Horizons on the History of Killybegs", privately published, Killybegs, 1989. p.106.
33 Patrick Conaghan, "Bygones...New Horizons on the History of Killybegs", privately published, Killybegs, 1989. p.105.
34 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.73, quoting from Geo. Hill, "An Historical Account of the Plantation of Ulster...", p.586.
35 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.74.
36 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.75.
37 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.74-75.
38 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.75.
39 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.75-77.
40 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.76-78.
41 Margaret Dickson Falley, Vol.I, p.558.
42 Margaret Dickson Falley, Vol.I, p.558, citing the "Inquisitions of Lein ster (published by the Irish Record Commission, 1826), and the "Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery" of James I & Charles I, containing grants.
43 Robert Kee, p.42.
44 R.F. Foster, "Modern Ireland, 1608-1972"; p.73.
45 McCrum, Cran, and MacNeil, "The Story of English", p.142.
46 "Old Bushmills", Ulster Genealogical & Historical Guild, Subscriber's Interest List Number 11, 1988; p.91.
47 Margaret Dickson Falley, Vol.I, p.558-559.
48 Encyclopedia Britannica (1959), "Londonderry", Vol.14, p.372.
49 Robert Kee, p.40.
50 Margaret Dickson Falley, Vol.I, p.559-560.


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Created: Monday 25 August 1997, 6:15:58
Prior Update: Monday 7 December 1998 - 15:05:01
Last Updated: Tuesday, 30 December, 2003

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