The Ulster Plantation |
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By the Sixteenth Century, English interest in bringing Ireland under its control had significantly revived. Under Henry VIII, a policy of 'Surrender and Regrant' was introduced and Gaelic landowners were given English titles. Under Elizabeth I, moves were made to weaken this power by forming alliances with lesser chieftains and introducing colonisation schemes in eastern Ulster.
At first relatively unsuccessful, (an English expedition to Derry in 1566 was recalled after nine months), this changed following the defeat of O'Neill, O'Donnell and their allies in 1603 after the Nine Year's War. In the east, Scottish adventurers were granted or acquired lands and encouraged the migration of lowland Scots. In the west, a formal plantation scheme was devised from 1609 following the forfeit of the lands of the great Gaelic lords. In the 'Flight of the Earls' they left from Rathmullan in Co Donegal to seek assistance from Spain but never returned. The 'Plantation' covered all of the region with the exception of counties Antrim and Down. Lands were given to English and Scottish soldiers or adventurers with strict requirements to settle English or Scottish immigrants in villages. Their language, custom, and religion were to be adopted. Remaining land was given to 'Native Freeholders' and to the new, reformed, Protestant, church. A new defensive form was introduced: the bawn. This is a strong house built of stone enclosing a rectangular courtyard with circular towers or 'flankers' at the corners. In many areas the construction of a specified number of bawns formed part of a planter's requirements. The most ambitious part of the scheme was the creation of a new county out of the former counties of Tyrone, Coleraine and small parts of Donegal and Antrim. This area was settled by the medieval guilds of the City of London and named 'Londonderry'. The county town of Londonderry was built to an ideal layout on top of the medieval and later English settlement of 'Derrie' . This was the key urban development of a series of rationally planned villages and towns across the planted area. It received stone walls, the last to be constructed in Europe. These were to be sorely tested in the next 100 years. In 1642, the native Irish rose in rebellion and the next ten years saw three armies in the field as the effects of English Civil War spread to the region. Most of the Native Freeholders lost their land in the subsequent 'Cromwellian Settlement' and the remainder were gone following the Williamite Wars later in the century. From 1689 to 1690, two English Kings brought European and local armies into the field to fight for the crown. King James besieged Londonderry for 108 days in 1689 before it was relieved by sea and King William landed at the eastern city of Carrickfergus in 1690 before marching to do battle with King James at the River Boyne in Co Meath. The Williamite Settlement, following his victory, entrenched a new order across Ireland. Subsequent Penal Laws, enacted by the Irish Parliament, ensured that a Protestant elite, linked to the established Church of Ireland, remained in control. |
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Bagnal's Castle, Newry, Co. Down c.1590 - pre plantation English Settlement.
Donegal Castle (1474-1563), principal O'Donnell castle, with remodelling and addition of Jacobean Manor House by Sir Basil Brooke c. 1623.
Brackfield Bawn, Co Londonderry.
City of Londonderry, c.1625
The White House, Jordanstown, Co Antrim. A reputed resting point for King William in 1690 on his way to the Boyne from Carrickfergus. It is a fortified stone house which would have had a surrounding bawn and been painted with a white limewash in the seventeenth century.
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