# Confiscation in Irish history/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V
THE CROMWELLIAN CONFISCATION
Confiscations based on legal quibbles, religious disabilities, the fear that the government might yield to the fanatical party in England and Scotland which clamoured for the extirpation of Catholicism, the example of the successful rebellion of the Scottish Covenanters, all led up to the great upheaval of 1641. The revolt, at first confined to the old Irish in Ulster, rapidly spread until it covered the whole island. It brought in its train a confiscation far more extensive than any which had gone before, that which is associated with the name of Cromwell.
This confiscation, the most sweeping, perhaps, that modern ages have seen, as it was the most complete has been also that which has left most impression on the popular memory. Legend has fixed on Cromwell and attributed to him the saying that he gave the Irish leave to choose between Hell or Connaught. And out of this has grown another legend, an idea widespread among politicians, that, namely, which represents him as attempting to root out from the soil of three-fourths of Ireland the whole mass of the Irish people.
​To study the actual work undertaken and achieved by Cromwell and his government is the object of this chapter.
From this study we shall find that whatever was Cromwell's first intention, and whether he did or did not offer the Irish the famous choice above mentioned, the weight of his hand fell in reality not on the mass of the people, but on the upper ranks of society and especially on the landed proprietors.
On February 14th, 1653, the lonely island of Inishboffin, off the coast of Galway, the last spot within the British seas over which the royal flag of England still floated, surrendered to the soldiers of the Parliament. After eleven years of destructive warfare there was again peace in Ireland. Rather might one say that a stillness as of death reigned over the island. Over 600,000 people, men, women and children had, according to Sir W. Petty, perished during those years. The survivors—still, according to Petty, about 850,000—were reduced to the utmost extreme of misery. Ireton on his march to besiege Limerick passed through tracts where for thirty miles together there was neither a house nor a living soul ​left. County Clare had practically escaped the war, yet out of 1,300 plough lands only about forty were tilled. A plague, worse by far than the celebrated Great Plague of London of 1666, had added to the ravages of sword and famine. Thirty-four thousand able-bodied men had laid down their arms and passed beyond the seas to acquire under the banners of France and Spain that discipline and resolution which might have saved their fortunes at home.
It is necessary to go over in a few words the history of those eleven years.
Five distinct parties each with its own army had been at one another's throats during that period.
There were two English Protestant factions, two Irish Catholic and one Scotch Presbyterian. The history of the time is a tangle of confused strife.
The Ulster Catholic Irish had risen in arms on October 23rd, 1641. They were soon joined by their co-religionists of old English descent in the Pale round Dublin. The rebellion spread till almost the whole island was involved.
Then came the outbreak of the civil war in England between Charles I. and the Puritan majority of the English parliament in August, 1642.
The effects of the English civil war were soon felt in Ireland. The Lord Lieutenant, the Marquis of Ormond, held Dublin and Drogheda as well as a large part of Leinster for the King. To this Protestant Royalist party belonged the majority of the Protestant landowners in Leinster and Connaught, as well as some leading Catholics such as the Marquis of Clanrickard.
​In Munster, at the outbreak of the rebellion, the city of Cork and the towns of Youghal and Kinsale, true to their old traditions of loyalty to the English crown, had shut their gates against the rebels, and given every assistance to the government. To them flocked for refuge all the Protestants of the neighbouring counties. Most of these were descendants of the men to whom Queen Elizabeth had granted the estates forfeited in the Desmond rebellion. They came from parts of England where Puritanism was strong, and most of their descendants in 1641 were in entire sympathy with the English parliament and opposed to the King.
The parliament managed to get control of the troops sent from England to the relief of the Munster garrisons; and when they had come to an open conflict with the King they won over the Munster Protestants to their side. The chief men of this party were the Norman Irish Earl of Barrymore, the English Boyle Earl of Cork and his numerous family of sons, and above all the celebrated Murrough O'Brien Baron of Inchiquin, whose atrocities earned him the name of "Murrough of the Burnings." He got complete control of Cork in 1644 by expelling the whole Catholic population.
The Scots had already formed considerable settlements in Down and Antrim in addition to those in the "Plantation Counties." To protect ​these the Scotch parliament sent over a force of 10,000 men under General Munro, by whose aid they established themselves firmly round Carrickfergus. The Scots joined the English parliament against the King, and so were more or less in alliance with the English of Munster and opposed to those of Dublin.
Division too, showed itself in the Irish ranks. There was a large and influential party in favour of a peace with Charles I. on conditions which would secure their lands, free them from the most oppressive of the penal laws, and allow them to join their forces to those of the King and overthrow those of the parliament. The chief men of this party were the old Anglo-Norman families of the Pale, and of the district round Kilkenny.
But there was another party composed chiefly of the Ulster Irish who demanded the restoration of all the lands confiscated in Ulster by James I., the restoration of the greater number of the churches and complete religious freedom. At their head we soon find the able Italian Nuncio of the Pope, Rinuccini. This party held that the best means of securing their designs was a vigorous prosecution of the war. If once all Ireland was in their hands they could dictate what terms they liked to the King as the price of their aid.
We can now see that either policy would have worked. If one or the other party could have got the upper hand and carried the nation with it they could have obtained as many reforms as might reasonably have satisfied them. The English royalists if backed by the whole force of the Irish ​royalists in the critical years of the civil war could have overcome the puritan party in England. Or if the extreme party had carried the day they could easily have conquered all Ireland, and then have made their own terms with Charles.
But the two Irish parties were so evenly balanced that neither could definitely gain the upper hand. They could not agree as to coming to terms with the King, and they would not prosecute the war with the necessary vigour against his representatives in Ireland.
For a moment the warring factions were reduced to two by the disappearance of the Protestant royalists. Ormond, acting on the King's orders to surrender Dublin, if hard pressed, rather to his English rebels than to his Irish rebels, left Ireland in 1647, and handed over Dublin and Drogheda to the parliamentary General Jones. Jones was in close alliance with the Scots, and the disappearance of the Royal authority caused the two Irish parties to join against the common foe, the English rebels.
But scarcely was the Royal authority withdrawn from Leinster than it was restored in Munster. Inchiquin, having grounds of complaint against the parliament, made overtures to the royalists. Ormond was invited back, Inchiquin brought the Protestant garrisons of Cork, Youghal and Kinsale over to the King's side, and the two managed at last to come to terms of peace with the majority of the Confederate Catholic Government at Kilkenny.
Scarcely was peace made when the execution of Charles I. by his rebellious subjects sent a thrill ​of horror through Europe. The French Protestant clergy thought it necessary to publish a manifesto expressing their horror of the deed; the Dutch Calvinists broke off all relations with England; Scotland proclaimed Charles II. as King. The effect in Ireland was immense. The Ulster Presbyterians one and all declared for Charles II. Ormond and Inchiquin entered Kilkenny and joined their forces with those of the Confederate Catholics.
For a moment, however, the Ulster Irish stood aloof, and even united with the Puritans. But they, too, rallied to the Royal cause; and soon the three nations and the three religions in Ireland stood side by side in arms for the King. Outside Dublin, Drogheda and Derry the Royal flag waved over the whole of Ireland.
There followed the invasion of Cromwell, and the complete conquest of the island, into the details of which we need not enter. In August, 1652, before the war was fully ended, the parliament in London passed an Act called "An Act for the Settling of Ireland."
This is one of the most extraordinary documents ever produced by any body of legislators. It divided up into categories the whole population of Ireland, condemning some to death, others to banishment, others to loss of all or some of their estates, pardoning others.
By it, as Mr. Dunlop puts it, "not one single person of whatever nationality he was—Irish, Scottish or English—was exempted from the consequences of participation in the rebellion, either by having to lose his life or his property, partially ​or altogether, unless he could prove that he had been constantly faithful to the interest of England as represented by the parliament, or by subsequent explanations could plead some special act of favour on his behalf. How utterly impossible it was for almost anyone to comply with this monstrous demand was shortly to appear."
First came five classes of persons exempted from pardon for life and estate—condemned, that is, to lose their lives and forfeit their property.
By the first clause it was enacted that all or every person or persons who, at any time before November 10th, 1642, have contrived, advised, councilled, acted or promoted the rebellion, murders or massacres—or have, at any time before the said 10th of November by bearing arms, or contributing men, arms, horse, plate, money, victual, or other furniture or habiliments of war—aided, assisted, promoted, acted, prosecuted or abetted the said rebellion, murders or massacres be excepted from pardon for life and estate.
The second clause pronounces the same penalty against all and every Jesuit, priest or other persons who have received orders from the See of Rome, if they had been in like manner guilty of contriving, advising, counselling, promoting, continuing, countenancing, aiding, assisting or abetting the rebellion or war in Ireland, or any of the murders or massacres, robberies or violences committed against the Protestants English or other there.
During the war all priests who fell into the ​hands of the English troops were knocked on the head, or hanged or shot as a matter of course. But by the various articles of surrender made with the different Irish forces the lives of all priests under the protection of those forces were secured to them provided they left the country by a certain date. The parliament undertook to provide for their transportation abroad, and many thus were shipped to Spain and other continental countries.
But many remained secretly in the island, and others soon slipped back from exile. Some of these, when caught, were transported to the West Indies. Others were confined on the island of Inishboffin, where many sickened and died from want of food and housing.
Yet, in spite of all the efforts of the government, a certain number remained at large, and secretly ministered to their co-religionists. It does not seem that once the war was over, any priests were put to death merely for being priests or for saying mass. It is well known that the English law punished all priests with death, and that some ten were executed under Charles I., who was, as we may remember, accused by the Puritans of showing too great favour to Popery, besides twelve more under the Parliament. This law was after a time allowed to fall into abeyance in England by the Republican Government. In Ireland there had never been any such law, and in spite of the threat to introduce this statute—the 27th of Elizabeth—no attempt seems to have been made to carry out this menace.
​It is the third clause of the "Act for the Settling of Ireland" that must have appeared to that age the most extraordinary, and that may perhaps account in great measure for the reputation which Cromwell still enjoys in this country.
It condemned by name one hundred and five persons as specially marked out for the death penalty.
First on the list was the Lord Lieutenant, the Protestant Marquis of Ormond. Next came the English Catholic Earl of Castlehaven, and he was followed by the Lord Lieutenant's Deputy, the Irish Catholic Earl of Clanrickard. Number five on the list was the Irish Protestant Earl of Roscommon, number seven was the Irish Puritan Baron of Inchiquin, number twelve was the Scotch Presbyterian Viscount Montgomery.
Other names included Bramhal the Protestant Bishop of Derry, and Sir George Munroe, Sir James Montgomery and Sir Robert Steward, all leading Ulster Presbyterians, and ferocious opponents of the Irish Catholics.
Finally there was what one is tempted to call a job lot of Earls, Viscounts, Barons, Knights, Esquires and minor individuals dignified by no title of honour, but including practically all the chief Catholic landowners in the country.
Now it must be remarked that we have no means of knowing whether it was ever intended to carry out the death sentences pronounced in the first and third clauses. But it is certain that they were not carried out. Of the 105 leading men mentioned by name some escaped to the Continent. The others all came under a clause at the end of ​the Act which provided that they were to have the benefit of any articles of surrender which had been granted to them at the time they laid down their arms. And of those in the first clause some were equally protected by terms of surrender, the others were insignificant people against Whom the new government did not trouble to proceed.
Very different was the case of those condemned to death and forfeiture by the fourth clause. This pronounced sentence of death on all who had both as principals and accessories since October 1st, 1641, committed murder.
But it defined murder as the killing of any person not publicly entertained and maintained in arms by the English, and furthermore as murderers were to be held all who had killed any Englishman so entertained and maintained in arms if the killer had himself not been an officer or soldier in the pay of the Irish against the English.
Now during the first weeks or even months after the rising the Irish had had, over large districts at least, practically no organised forces. Therefore anyone who had killed an English soldier in fair fight in those months and those districts would, under the second part of this definition, be counted as a murderer.
Moreover, on the first news of the rising, many English landowners dwelling in strong castles had put these into a state of defence, armed their English tenants, and such of the Englishry as took ​refuge with them, and not only successfully defended themselves against all attack, but in many cases had made counter attacks against the Irish in their neighbourhood. And they had in these counter attacks shown no mercy. Prisoners were hanged, women and children slain in cold blood. There are few more horrible records of atrocities extant than the diary which complacently sets forth the exploits of the garrison of Manor Hamilton. Yet as these English landowners and their followers could scarcely have been said to have been publicly entertained and maintained in arms, any Irishman who in self-defence had killed one of them was liable to be accounted as a murderer under the first part of the definition.
And that people were executed under this clause as " murderers" merely for killing armed Englishmen is shown by at least two cases.
And while the definition of murder was thus strained against the Irish, no mention was made of punishing the horrible murders of defenceless women and children which fill whole pages of some of the records left by English officers, and of the official reports to the Lords Justices.
Mr. Gardiner, in his article in the English Historical Review on "The Transplantation to Connaught" estimates that clauses one and four of the Act condemned to death perhaps one hundred thousand Irishmen.
​Yet the number of those who actually suffered death was not very great. No one was, as I have stated, executed under clause one. In Ulster it has been said that the only execution for murder was that of Sir Phelim O'Neill, the leader of the rising. In the other provinces somewhat over two hundred persons were put to death.
The trials, as the law was administered in those days, were not flagrantly unfair, and where there were cases of unjust condemnations, unjust even by the standards of that age, the victims were mostly from the upper ranks of society. Thus Lord Mayo, and Colonel Bagenal, head of a family of Elizabethan planters, were both held at the Restoration to have been unjustly condemned. So, too, the evidence against Lady Roche of Fermoy, and the aged Mrs. Fitzpatrick a near relation of the Lord of Upper Ossory, who were hanged, or according to some accounts burned to death, seems to have been of the flimsiest character. Among people of meaner rank the number of acquittals was fairly high.
There remained three or four more classes of comparatively "innocent" Irish, and it was these and these alone who were allowed to fall back on Connaught as an alternative to a less damp but warmer climate.
First of all there were those who, not having joined the war before November 10th, 1642, had at any time served against the parliament as colonel or in any higher rank, or as governor of any castle or fort. They were to be banished for life, and their estates confiscated. But their wives and children were to receive lands to the value of ​one-third of their former estates wherever the parliament should appoint. It is to be noted that to have borne arms against the parliament was the ground for condemnation here.
Secondly those who since November 10th, 1642, had at any time borne arms against the parliament, but had not served as colonel, etc. were also to receive lands equal to one-third of their former estates wherever Parliament should appoint; but were not to be banished.
Now in these two clauses there is no mention of religion. They hit the Scotch Presbyterians of Ulster and most of the Protestant landowners of Leinster just as hard as they hit the Catholics, for they at one time or another had borne arms against the parliament in the cause of the King.
Even most of the Munster Protestants had for a moment in 1648 and 1649 lapsed into loyalty. It is true that most of them soon repented and by a sudden revolt from the King betrayed Cork, Youghal, Kinsale and Bandon to Cromwell at a moment when his position seemed desperate. He had been beaten back from Waterford, and had cut himself off from his base on the Leinster seaboard. The opportune revolt of these Munster garrisons enabled him to establish himself in a new base, where he was able to rest his famished and plague-stricken army and refit it by means of the sea from England.
Accordingly we find that all those Munster landowners who could prove that they had taken part in securing these towns for the parliament received a free pardon for their momentary adherence to the royalists.
​The next clause specifically makes mention of religion. It provided that all persons of the Popish religion who had resided in Ireland at any time from October 1st, 1641, until March 1st, 1650, and had not come under any of the previous clauses were to lose one-third of their estates, and to get lands equal to the other two-thirds wherever the parliament might appoint, unless they could prove constant good affection to the commonwealth. And all other persons, i.e. Protestants, who had been in Ireland at any time during the same period were to forfeit one-fifth of their estates unless they could show that they had been in actual service of the parliament or had otherwise manifested good affection to its interests having opportunity to do the same. It is to be noticed that they were not required to prove constant good affection, and that they were to keep four-fifths of their actual estates.
Now the capital value of land in the 17th century was estimated to be ten years of the rental. These Protestants then were ultimately required to pay two years' rent to the parliament. And to the other Protestants who were to forfeit two-thirds a concession was afterwards made. They were allowed, if they accepted the Republic, to redeem all or some of the two-thirds by paying heavy fines, and were not removed to other parts of the country. Thus the Earl of Clanbrassil had to pay £9,000, about £25,000 of our money, for his estates and Lord Montgomery £3,000.
Those Protestants who refused to acknowledge the Republican Government lost all their estates, as did those Catholics who refused to submit. It ​would appear from a report of the Commissioners for executing the Act of Settlement after the Restoration that at least 168 loyal Protestant landlords, besides the Duke of Ormond, had their estates confiscated and that their properties amounted to close on 180,000 acres (over and above what had already been voluntarily restored to some of them by the Cromwellian grantees).
Those Catholics who could prove "Constant Good Affection" were apparently to retain their former estates. But the clause was so worded and interpreted that they had to give proof of having actually rendered service to the parliament. This took away the estates of lunatics and minors, women, bedridden and crippled persons who were never engaged in the war or had never acted against the parliament. The mere fact of their having resided in Ireland between 1641 and 1650 caused them to forfeit their estates.
Here, by a curious irony of fate, we meet the Elizabethan undertakers the Brownes of Cosh Maing and Ross O'Donoghue. The original Browne had been a zealous Protestant. But his son, disappointed in obtaining the hand of the heiress of the Earl of Clancarthy, fell back on the next most powerful family in Desmond, and married the daughter of O'Sullivan Mór. And ​this lady succeeded in bringing up her children as Catholics, and, as is well known, her descendants have since adhered to that faith.
Now in 1641 the head of the family. Sir Valentine Browne, was an infant, three years old. He could of course have taken no part in the rising, or in the war that followed. But equally of course he could have rendered no service to the Parliament, so that he, just like any mere Irishman, had to leave his estates, in order to receive lands equivalent to two-thirds of their value wherever parliament might appoint. The same fate befell the head of the rival family who claimed to be the real owners of Cosh Maing and Eoghanacht O'Donoghue, namely, Daniel or Donnell MacCarthy Mór of Pallis, the descendant of the lady Ellen and Florence son of the Lord of Carbery. This Daniel, too, was a minor, and both he and Sir Valentine Browne were among the fortunate few who were restored to their estates under Charles II.
As for those Catholics of full age and sound in mind or body who had resided in Ireland during the years mentioned, for them to have displayed constant good affection to the parliament would have been almost as impossible as it would have been to expect an Irishman who resided in Ireland at the time of the American Revolution to have shown affection to the American Republican Government. During these ten years the parliament had had little or no footing in Ireland outside Munster and part of Ulster, and when Cromwell landed the Royal authority was supreme all over Ireland except in Dublin and Derry.
​The citizens of Dublin were the only considerable body of Catholics who had never done anything against the Parliament. Up to 1647 they had been under the authority of the King's Lord Lieutenant, Ormond, but had never been in collision with the parliamentary forces. Ormond in his negotiations in 1646 and 1647 for the surrender of Dublin and his other garrisons to the parliament endeavoured to secure guarantees that the Catholics who had been under his protection should be secured from molestation. But he does not seem to have been able to get any definite pledge from the parliament. When Jones took possession of Dublin in 1647, it would appear that he expelled many of these Catholics who for six years had been fighting against their own countrymen and co-religionists. Those not so expelled were forced to take leases of their own houses from the republican soldiers. It was now provided that holders of such leases were to keep them.
In the rest of Ireland, according to Sir William Petty, twenty-six Catholic landowners, owning between them 40,000 acres (i.e. 80,000 English acres) proved Constant Good Affection. Almost the only considerable person among them was the Knight of Kerry, whose lands, largely bog and mountain, must have accounted for a very large proportion of the 40,000 acres.
​With the exception, then, of these fortunate twenty-six, every Catholic landlord in Ireland lost his estates. Those who came under the first five clauses of the Act lost everything, unless they had been members of one of the armed forces which had secured special terms of surrender. In this case they would be in the same case as those in the favoured classes; they would receive, that is, lands equivalent to one-third or two-thirds of their former estate in whatever place the parliament might appoint.
So far, there is no mention of actual transplantation. The comparatively "innocent" from the parliamentary standpoint, were to lose their actual lands, and to receive partial compensation wherever parliament might appoint, but it was not stated that they themselves would be forbidden to reside wherever they chose.
But at the end of the Act there is a foreboding of what was to come. There was a proviso that all persons who had obtained special terms of surrender were to benefit by them, in spite of anything to the contrary in the preceding clauses, but that the government might, if they saw fit, transplant them from their former place of habitation to wherever it might judge most consistent with the public safety.
Curiously enough the first proposals to transplant any one under this clause refer not to the Catholics but to the Ulster Presbyterians. It was suggested that all their chief men should be removed from Down and Antrim, as being too near ​their native Scotland, and given lands in the Counties Kilkenny, Waterford and Tipperary. It is curious to speculate on what might have occurred had this been carried out. Would "Waterford and not Belfast have been to-day the commercial capital of Ireland, or would the soft Munster air have proved too much even for Scottish vigour?
The plan was given up, apparently because too hard to carry out. The English Presbyterians were now at variance with the ruling Independent faction and might have taken up the cause of their co-religionists of Ireland, in which case Scotland, which had not yet been thoroughly subdued, would certainly have broken out again.
Gradually, however, the new scheme of settlement took shape. But it was not definitely announced until late in the year 1653, several months after all resistance had ceased.
In short there were to be two Irelands, one English east of the Shannon, in which a new colony might be planted free from all fear of contamination by admixture with the natives, the other comprising Connaught and Clare where alone those natives who had failed to prove constant good affection might hold land.
The reason for choosing Connaught and Clare as the place of confinement for the Irish is obvious. The Shannon, the Lower Erne and the woods, bogs and mountains of Leitrim cut this district off from the rest of the country. And, to secure against all possibility of the Irish breaking bounds, they were not to be allowed to live within four miles of the Shannon, or of the sea, nor on any of the islands ​of the coast. Thus they would be effectually shut off from all communication with the outside world.
It appears quite untrue to say that Connaught was chosen as being the poorest and most barren part of the country. Ulster in the 17th century had that distinction. The Parliament when raising money to put down the Irish rising declared that they would give one acre of land in Leinster for every 12s.. advanced, one in Munster for every 8s.., one in Connaught for every 6s., and one in Ulster for 4s.. Besides Connaught and Clare must have suffered much less than the rest of the island during the preceding years of strife. Between 1642 and 1651 Clare had been practically undisturbed and though the Scots had more than once devastated Connaught with great ferocity, the destruction of property cannot have been nearly as great west of the Shannon as in those parts, such as most of Leinster, exposed in turn to inroads from all of the contending parties.
It was in September, 1653, that it was at last announced that Connaught and Clare had been selected as the region where all those Irish entitled to lands by the preceding Act were to receive them. All the Irish were to remove beyond the Shannon before May 1st, 1654. Any found on this side of the river after that date were to suffer death.
​To carry out the work an elaborate machinery was set up. All who claimed lands were to proceed to Loughrea where commissioners for this purpose were to give them temporary allotments for their support, until another body of commissioners sitting at Athlone should have time to try each individual case, and decide whether the claimant was to receive lands to one-third or two-thirds of the value of his former estate.
As practically the whole nation, Catholic and Protestant had been in arms against the Parliament, it was held to be the simplest plan to consider every man guilty, and his estate forfeited, until he proved the contrary. This is the special feature which distinguishes this confiscation from all others. It was not necessary that the government should prove guilt; it was necessary that the landowner should prove innocence.
Accordingly practically every landowner was required to show cause why his estate should not be seized, or why, if it had been seized into the hands of the government he should recover it.
There were of course some great Protestant landowners as Lord Barrymore in Cork, Lord Kerry, and Lord Thomond who, as was well known to everyone, were Protestants and had either fought for the parliament, or else had been absent from Ireland during the war. They no doubt got back their estates as a matter of course. But for the others, they had first to prove that they ​were Protestants, and then meet the awkward question since what date. For the parliamentary authorities had noticed that since 1652 quite a number of landowners had been struck with the advantages of the reformed religion.
Ministers were therefore directed to hold Godly converse with such people whose Protestantism was of a recent date, and to endeavour to judge how far the conversion was real, how far it sprung from a desire to hold on to landed estates. If real they were to be dispensed for a time. But having proved that he was not a Papist the landlord was not yet out of his difficulties. Had he ever served his king against the forces of the Parliament? If so, he must go off to Athlone and there seek for lands in Connaught equivalent to one-third of his former estate. Or if he had never fought for the King he might have paid taxes or helped in some way to support his army. If so, a portion of his lands were to go, even if he had not to seek a new assignment in Connaught. Perhaps, however, he came safely through all these toils and showed good affection—an occasional lapse into loyalty was condoned in the case of Protestants—then he could keep his estate or recover it if it had already been given away to some follower of Cromwell's.
However the Parliament soon found that it would be impossible to move even all the Irish Catholics before May 1st, 1654, so by a special grace all these delinquent Protestants were allowed to compound for their estates by paying a sum of money, and were apparently allowed to settle directly with the authorities without having to go off to Athlone in the depths of winter.
​There is one case on record of these Protestant landowners which is such a curious example of how the English settler of one generation had in the next become an Irishman whose property, itself acquired by confiscation, might now be disposed of again to a brand new Englishman, that it deserves to be quoted.
The poet Edmund Spencer had served in Ireland as secretary to the Lord Deputy Grey in Elizabeth's day. As a reward he had received grants of land in various parts of the country which had been confiscated from the Irish proprietors. Of these the chief estate was the castle and lands of Kilcolman not very far from Buttevant. Spencer had distinguished himself as a political writer by propounding various ingenious plans by which the Irish might be exterminated by famine.
He had married an Englishwoman of the Boyle family and left several sons, of whom one, in due course, inherited Kilcolman. But this son, following the example of hundreds of the other Elizabethan settlers, married an Irishwoman and a Catholic. He was apparently dead in 1641 when the rebellion broke out, leaving a son aged seven, William by name, under the care of his mother. When the County Cork joined in the rising Mrs. Spencer and her son fled to Cork, and during the whole course of the war remained in the English quarters, receiving no profits from Kilcolman. As soon as young Spencer came to years of discretion he utterly renounced the Popish religion in which his mother had brought him up. But as in 1641 ​he had been counted a Catholic his lands were given out to Cromwell's soldiers in due course, and his profession of Protestantism was not enough to recover them.
Off he had to go to Connaught like any other mere Irishman in 1654, and not until 1657 was he able to get his case brought before Oliver Cromwell himself, who on account of the usefulness of his grandfather the poet's writings touching the reduction of the Irish to civility, ordered the restoration of his estate.
And Spencer's case was not singular. The sons of those who under Elizabeth had been the greediest plunderers of the Irish were now packed off to Connaught on the charge of being Irish Papists.
The fate of the inhabitants of Cork is particularly curious. The citizens of Cork, and the townsmen of Youghal and Kinsale were proud of their unblemished English or at least Danish descent. Not only did the law up to the time of James I. forbid marriages between the English and the Irish, but in all the towns local bye-laws ​repeated the prohibition, and we may be sure that commercial jealousy saw that these laws were observed. One of the Blakes of Galway shortly before 1641 declared and actually proved in a petition that, though his ancestors had been for over 400 years in Ireland, not one of them had ever defiled the purity of their English blood by marriage with an Irishwoman.
When the insurrection broke out in 1641 the townsmen of Cork, Youghal and Kinsale, who were all Catholics, remained true to their old traditions of loyalty, and declared for the English.
They gave shelter to all the fugitive Protestants from the country districts, admitted English garrisons inside their walls, and the Corkmen advanced £30,000 towards paying the expenses of the English army besides providing them with food and lodgings. As a reward for this loyalty they and the Catholics of Youghal were all turned out of their homes and driven outside the walls by Inchiquin and the Puritans in 1644. On this occasion they were plundered of all their property, their losses amounting to £60,000, and they were left with their wives and children without one bit to put into their mouths. And some of them had their throats cut by the Irish as being partisans of the English.
When Inchiquin revolted from the parliament to the King in 1648 these people were allowed back to their homes. But when in less than a year's time the English garrisons revolted from the King ​to Cromwell they were again expelled, this time in the dead of an October night, and again robbed of all they possessed. But the Cromwellian government had some regard for their sufferings. It was provided that their having lived among the Irish during the period of their expulsion was not to be counted as an act of hostility to the parliament, and they were allowed to return to their homes and dispensed from going to be tried at Loughrea or Athlone. In 1656 the Connaught Commissioners, having finished their work in that province, came to Mallow and opened a court there to try the cases of the landowners and inhabitants of Cork, Youghal and Kinsale.
They seem to have conducted the trial as fairly as could have been expected. The townsmen were represented by English Protestant lawyers, who discharged their task conscientiously. The court began with the inhabitants of Kinsale whose case was the strongest. Not only had they remained loyal, but they had fought against the insurgents, who had assaulted and very nearly taken Kinsale in 1641 or 1642. They had always kept watch and ward on the walls alongside of the English troops, and had not been turned out of their homes in 1644.
The first case heard was that of one Thomas Toomey, a shipwright, who owned a house in Kinsale. It was proved that he had helped to close the gates against the Irish and had served as a corporal under an English captain during all the time ​the town was in danger of attack. But when Inchiquin and his English troops revolted from the parliament to the King in 1648 Thomas and all his fellow- townsmen had remained in the town, obedient as always, to the orders of their English masters. Inchiquin, as he had done before, levied a tax on the town to support his troops. If anyone refused to obey the order, issued in the King's name, his goods were seized. Thomas Toomey and all the rest of the townsmen paid up their quota, as they were legally bound to do, to the King's general. They did not wait for their goods to be forcibly seized. But by having paid only one such contribution, not taken by actual violence, to the royal war chest they were held to have been wanting in Constant Good Affection, and judgment was therefore given that Toomey must go to Connaught and there receive lands equal to two-thirds of his former property.
The court then carefully considered eighty-six more cases, those of men who like Toomey had been zealous in the English cause. But in every case the verdict was that the petitioners had failed to prove constant good affection, and so must lose one-third of their property and transplant to Connaught. The Protestants in these towns were of course most of them in a similar case; but as Protestants they were not required to prove constant good affection, and, at the most, seem only to have lost one-third of their property, without having to transplant. Besides many of them had been sharers in the revolt of the garrison back again from the King to Cromwell and so all former acts of loyalty on their part were forgiven.
​But one and all, the Catholics of Kinsale declared that they would not go to Connaught among their enemies the Irish, who hated them as traitors to their religion, and some of them said they would rather be transported to Barbadoes than to Connaught among the rebels. Rather than do so they would forfeit all their possessions. And on the report of the judges Cromwell exempted them from transplantation and allowed them some proportion of lands in the baronies of Muskerry and Barrymore, provided they were distant at least two miles from any walled town or seaport.
Now comes the question who were to be transplanted into Connaught. The first idea seems to have been that all the Irish were to be moved there. It was certainly so interpreted at first by the Irish. In order to carry out the transplantation all landowners were required to hand in to officials named for that purpose a description of themselves, with the number of cattle, horses, pigs, &c. which they owned, and a list of all their servants and tenants who were to transplant with them. These lists are still extant for Munster, and for eleven counties of Leinster. In some cases in Kerry these lists plainly show that the landlord was accompanied by all his tenants. One such has over 900 names in it. For some reason or other in the Counties of Kerry and Tipperary the transplantation was ​much more extensive than in others. Sixty-six Kerry landlords were transplanted with nearly 5,000 followers. In Tipperary the clearance is said to have been so complete that no Irish inhabitant was left in certain districts able to point out the boundaries of the various territories and lands in them, and four fit and knowing persons had to be sent back in December, 1654, to the barony of Eliogarty to give the surveyors the information they required.
But soon it was found that there were difficulties in the way of such a complete clearance. The time limit, May 1st, 1654, was extended, first in particular cases then more generally. And as late as July, 1655, the transplantation was not fully accomplished. Some of the Irish declared they preferred death to transplantation. Accordingly one or two landlords were hanged, to encourage the rest, and a certain number were shipped as slaves or indentured labourers to the West Indies.
But meantime many of the English had begun to object to a complete transplantation of the whole native population. They declared that they could not get Protestant tenants to cultivate the farms, and that they themselves being soldiers or townsmen could not cultivate the land themselves, neither could they get labourers from England. Already the Act of 1652 had declared that it was not the intention of Parliament to extirpate the whole nation, and had pardoned all ploughmen, husbandmen, labourers, artificers, and others of the inferior sort, if they were not possessed of goods to the value of £10, and if they did not come under those classes excepted from pardon. ​unfortunately practically all of them, outside some few towns, would, if old enough to bear arms in 1642, have taken part in the rising, and so this concession was practically valueless.
Now appeared a famous pamphlet called The Great Case of Transplantation Discussed. The author, Vincent Gookin, was the son of an Englishman who had settled in Co. Cork in the time of James L, and was one of the six members sent by the Irish Protestants to Cromwell's Parliament—the first Union Parliament—in 1653.
In this pamphlet he declared that the new settlers had need of the Irish lower orders—poor labourers, simple creatures, whose sole design was to live and maintain their families, the manner of which was so low that their design was rather to be pitied than by any body feared or hindered. They alone could till the land, and so enable the new English landholders to live.
He gives rather unexpected testimony to Irish industry. "Few of the peasantry," says he, "but were skilful in husbandry, few of the women but were skilful in dressing hemp and flax and making woollen cloth. In every hundred men there were five or six masons and carpenters at least, and these more handy and ready in building ordinary houses, and much more skilful in supplying the defects of instruments and materials than English artificers."
This pamphlet raised a storm of opposition among the more zealous sectaries, who called for a thorough rooting out of the whole Irish population of the three provinces.
​But the policy advocated by Gookin prevailed. After much debate it was ordered that only landowners and those who had actually borne arms were to be transplanted. Landowners included not only landlords and all those, their heirs, who might become landlords, but those tenants who held leases for seven years or upwards. Among swordsmen, or those who had actually borne arms, were counted all militiamen, those who had kept watch and ward, even if pressed or forced, those who had mustered at rendezvous, even if they had never actually served in the field.
But as a matter of fact this last part of the order was never fully carried out, at least as a rule. Practically the vast majority of the lower orders were left on this side of the Shannon, though they were as a rule forbidden to dwell in any walled town—only forty-three were allowed to remain in Clonmel, only forty in Kilkenny, and these only to be licensed for a short period—and only landowners, their families and such of their tenants as chose to accompany them were forced to move into Connaught and Clare.
In fact after a time the policy of the government seems to have tended rather to prevent the mass of the peasantry from removing across the Shannon. At least we are told in an account of the Wexford barony of Forth, compiled after the Restoration, apparently for Sir William Petty, that the Cromwellians had not banished or transplanted the commonalty or plebeian natives in that barony in the hope that the expelled loyal ​gentlemen being deprived of their servants and assisting dependents might be rendered "calamitous."
There are two interesting points in connection with the Cromwellian settlement to be cleared up, namely, the numbers actually transplanted and what proportion the landowners transplanted bore to the total number of Catholic landowners.
Our sources of information are unfortunately deficient, and as usual contradictory.
First there are what are called the "Connaught Certificates." Each landowner, on transplanting, was to present to the authorities a certificate giving details as to himself, those who were to accompany him, and what stock of cattle, &c. he possessed.
These certificates still exist for the five Munster counties east of the Shannon, and for eleven of the twelve counties of Leinster. The Ulster certificates are lost; but there can have been but few Ulster landowners transplanted, for, owing to the plantation under James I., most of that province belonged to Protestants who were dispensed from transplanting; and few of the Catholics could have come within those classes who were entitled to receive lands in Connaught.
For the Connaught and Clare landowners possibly no certificates were issued, as it was easy to find out particulars about them, on the spot; at any rate none have survived.
Some of these certificates are curious reading. I select the following from Prendergast:—
Sir Nicholas Comyn of Limerick was numb of one side of his body of a dead palsy, and was ​accompanied only by his lady Catherine Comyn aged 35, flaxen haired, middle height; and one maid servant Honor Ny Namara aged 20 years, brown hair, middle stature. He had no substance, but expected the benefit of his qualification. Ignatius Stacpoole of Limerick, an orphan aged 11 years, flaxen hair, full face and low stature was accompanied only by his sister Catherine aged 8, flaxen hair, full face. They, too, had no substance to relieve themselves with, but desired the benefit of their claim before the Commissioners at Loughrea.
John and Mathew Hore of Dungarvan were accompanied by 128 persons, their children, servants and tenants and a great stock of cattle, sheep and horses.
The Lord Baron of Castleconnell had a wife, five young children, and thirteen servants or tenants. The Lord Burke, Baron of Brittas, had three cows, three horses, six hogs for his whole substance.
The Lord Viscount Ikerrin had sixteen acres of winter corn, four cows, twenty-four sheep, two swine, five garrans. Seventeen persons were to go with him. From Munster and Leinster 150,000 animals of all kinds were to transplant with their owners, as well as sixty-five geese, these latter from Co. Tipperary.
The total number of landowners who received certificates in Munster was 550. Of these 221 were from Tipperary and 168 from Limerick. For Cork only sixteen certificates are extant; but there must have been more, for there were many in Cork who did not join in the war until after 1642.
​From Leinster (eleven counties) 523 landowners were transplanted. The total number of persons mentioned in the certificates is 17,886 for Munster, of whom 8,531 were from Tipperary and nearly 5,000 from Kerry; and from Leinster nearly 8,500. In all, then, there were 1,073 landlords and nearly 27,000 persons from these two provinces.
But is is by no means certain that this number actually did transplant.
The certificates were filled up and handed in by July, 1654, at a time when it was still believed that the transplantation was to be universal. Tenants then gave in their names with their landlords; but it does not follow that they afterwards went off with them to Connaught.
And that even the gentry were not all transplanted appears from the Census of circa 1659, supposed to have been made by or for Sir William Petty. From this we find that in the Barony of Clanwilliam, in Tipperary, there were then fourteen or fifteen persons bearing Irish names, and described as "gent" amongst those whom the Census calls Tituladoes, and that there were four in the barony of Owney and Ara.
This Census of 1659 is even more conclusive in ​the case of the mass of the population. The figures, as given in [[author: William Henry Hardinge|Hardinge]]'s printed account of it, show for Munster out of 153,000 inhabitants only 14,000 English and for Leinster only 24,000 out of a total of 155,000. Even in Ulster out of a total of 104,000 the English and Scots combined only numbered 40,600. These figures are perhaps not altogether to be trusted, for it seems impossible to believe that the total population of Ulster in 1659 was so small, and that the total British population was only 86,000 out of a total for the whole island of but little over 500,000. But they show that the vast majority of the population east of the Shannon was not removed to Connaught.
As for the Ulster landowners the lists in the Ormond MS. to be mentioned presently only contain eighteen Ulster names. But these lists apparently are not complete, for they contain no O'Donnells, although it seems quite certain that the O'Donnell families of Newport and Westport in Co. Mayo were transplanted from Ulster at this period.
As to the landlords in Connaught and Clare it is not true that they were left undisturbed as some writers appear to believe. They had to stand their trial like all others, and according to the amount of guilt or innocence established in their cases, lose all, or two-thirds or one-third of their lands. And it does not follow that they were not moved from their former estates. Some of them no doubt were allowed their proportions out of their former properties. Most of them, however, were moved ​to other parts of Connaught or Clare. But, as they had not to take a long and toilsome journey across Ireland in winter before being able to get their cases tried, they were to a certain extent better off than the rest of the Irish.
The number of Connaught landowners was extremely large. As we have already seen, the land question in Connaught and Clare had been settled more or less on Irish lines under Elizabeth and James. Nearly all who claimed lands under Irish gavelkind had been made proprietors according to English law.
The Books of Survey and Distribution show that there were innumerable small landholders—almost a peasant proprietary west of the Shannon in 1641.
And a large part of Connaught had remained undisturbed in that year, so that there must have been many landowners in the province who had taken no part in the rising until after November, 1642, and so were entitled to some part of their estates.
It is not true either that all Connaught and Clare were given to the Irish. It was provided that innocent Protestant owners of land west of the Shannon, might, if they liked, hand over their property to the government, and get in exchange lands east of the Shannon. But it does not appear that many, if any, took advantage of this. All Sligo and Leitrim and part of Mayo were ​distributed among the Cromwellian settlers and no Irish proprietors allowed in them. Of 5,000,000 English acres in Connaught and Clare about 1,200,000 belonged in 1641 to Protestants who either proved good affection to the parliament, or else redeemed their estates by payment of a fine, and so were not disturbed. Of the remaining 3,800,000 which were confiscated, over 2,000,000 acres were counted as valueless—unprofitable. There were over 1,620,000 acres of profitable land confiscated, and as we shall see only something over 1,100,000 of these were allotted to Catholics. The remainder, about 460,000, was distributed among the new Cromwellian settlers.
Until recent years the Transplanters' Certificates were almost our only source of knowledge for details of the transplantation. But in Vol. 2 of the Report of the Historical MSS. Commission on the Ormonde Manuscripts there is a most important document dealing with this point. This is a list, or rather two lists, purporting to give the names of all the transplanted persons, their place of origin, and the number of acres set out to each. There is also a statement that the total area so set ​out was 717,076 Irish acres or 1,162,544 English acres. It is signed by Thomas Eliot, Deputy Surveyor General; and therefore may be supposed to be a fairly accurate statement of what lands were adjudged to the transplanted Irish.
The number of names is somewhat short of 2000; and the amount of land assigned to individuals varies from 11,574 acres allotted to the Earl of Westmeath, and 8,919 to Sir R. Blake, to 2 acres assigned to Catherine Quirke of Galway, and 4 to Mary ny Connor alias Neilan, and Honora, Kathleen and Amy Neilan, daughters of Eichard Neilan of Clare.
We cannot be sure how many of these 2000 persons received estates in fee-simple. Some may only have got leases under other transplanted persons; others were possibly only settled as tenants at will. But if we consider that at least 1,023 landowners were moved from Munster and Leinster and that the number of those falling into various categories entitled to lands was very small in Ulster, and for reasons of which we have already spoken, very large in Connaught, we may suppose that the greater number of these 2000 persons who received lands in Connaught got them, or rather were intended to get them, in fee-simple. There are, however, difficulties in this view, which I shall mention in the next chapter.
The interesting questions next arise as to what ​proportion these 2000 or so of Catholic landowners who were assigned lands west of the Shannon bore to the total number of Catholic landowners in Ireland in 1641, and what was the total acreage possessed by the latter at that date.
Sir W. Petty has given certain figures which have been largely adopted by subsequent writers. According to him, the area of Ireland is ten million Irish acres. There is an underestimate here, due to an error that runs through all Petty's survey. It is, for us, in this connection a fortunate one, since the true area of Ireland, being a little over twenty million English acres, we have only to multiply Petty's figures by two to get fairly accurate results in English acres.
Multiplying in this way, we find that Petty estimates one-fourth of the island, i.e., five million acres, as unprofitable. Of the remaining profitable area, over two-thirds, i.e., ten million four hundred thousand English acres were held by Catholics, and four million six hundred thousand English acres by Protestants in 1641. He then gives figures showing how the ten million profitable acres held by Catholics in 1641 were dealt with under the Acts of Settlement and Explanation, and arrives at the conclusion that the net result of the proceedings under the Commonwealth and at the Restoration was the transfer of over five and a half million English acres of profitable land from Catholic to Protestant hands, leaving over four and a half millions still in possession of Catholics.
​As Petty carried out the whole work of survey under the Commonwealth, and had access to every available source of information, and was besides a painstaking investigator, one would at first sight accept his figures as accurate. A closer investigation, however, raises doubts. A curious light on his accuracy is thrown by his estimate of the number of Catholic freeholders in 1641. As printed in Hull's edition of the "Political Anatomy," we find first on p. 141: "The Claymants of Land or the number of Proprietors and number of Catholic Freeholders before the War was"—and then a space left blank. Twelve pages farther on the number is given as 3,000. Now, this, we know from other sources—sources accessible to Petty, and even probably officially used by him—to be untrue.
There is still extant a document printed in Hart's "Irish Landed Gentry when Cromwell came to Ireland," entitled, "Forfeiting Proprietors Listed" made in 1657 by Christopher Gough. This list gives the names of Catholic landowners in 1641 for six counties of Leinster, two of Munster, six of Ulster, and one county and one barony of Connaught. The total for these is somewhat over four thousand. Now, the six Ulster counties given include five out of the six "plantation counties," and the number of Catholic ​proprietors in these was only about 270. Among the counties omitted are Tipperary, Meath, Galway and Clare, where, for various reasons, there was a very considerable sub-division of property, so that we are warranted in assuming that, for the whole island, the number of Catholic landowners in 1641 was at least 8,000, and may have been as many as 10,000, or even 12,000. So that Petty's figure of 3,000 appears to be a mere guess, or rather a piece of special pleading. Therefore, one is inclined to regard all his figures with suspicion, a suspicion heightened when we find, according to the report of the Commissioners appointed in 1700 by the English House of Commons to investigate the forfeitures under William III., that the four thousand Catholics outlawed after the downfall of James II. had between them held only about 2,250,000 English acres. The amount of land in Catholic hands had certainly increased rather than diminished between the Restoration and the Revolution, so that it is hard to accept Petty's statement that the area finally left in Catholic hands after the Restoration was over four and a half million acres of profitable land.
That Petty's figures are not to be blindly trusted appears, too, from other contemporary statements.
​Finally, Mr. Hardinge, who had specially investigated the question of the forfeitures, and published the results of his labours in a paper read before the Royal Irish Academy in 1866, gives a totally different account of the area held by Catholics and Protestants, respectively, in 1641. He gives figures for each county and province, of which the total per province is as follows:—
| | Forfeited |
| Ulster, | 1,153,693 | 4,106,034 |
| Leinster, | 2,744,441 | 2,079,866 |
| Munster, | 3,912,055 | 2,003,507 |
| Connaught, | 3,198,269 | 980,708 |
| Total, | 11,008,458 | 9,170,115 |
Of the forfeited area, 7,701,972 English acres were profitable. This is 2,300,000 acres short of the figures given by Petty as the amount of profitable land held by Catholics in 1641.
It would appear probable, therefore, on the whole, that very few of the Catholic landowners were able to prove a sufficient amount of "innocence"—using the word in its Cromwellian sense—to entitle them to any lands at all in Connaught. Those who did not get such lands lost everything, and either sought their livelihood on the Continent or lingered in want at home expecting the restoration of the King which they fondly hoped would end all their troubles. As I have said, at least six thousand landowners, and probably a ​very much larger number, were thus deprived of their lands.
For instance, according to the certificates, only 550 landlords were transplanted from the five Munster counties, and of these only sixty-six were from Kerry. But in Kerry the estates of nearly 550 Catholic landowners were confiscated. There were over 400 Catholic landowners in the single barony of Carbery, in Co. Cork; and about 1,000 in the whole county. Yet according to the certificates only sixteen were transplanted; the rest lost everything (except those of Cork, Kinsale and Youghal who were dispensed from transplantation). It seems impossible to believe that the returns for these and some other counties are complete; but making every allowance for error it would appear that only about one landowner out of every five was awarded any lands in Connaught or Clare.
Mr. Gardiner has examined the only surviving records of the examinations held to prove "delinquency"—those of the precinct of Athlone. Taking the first and last twenty cases he finds that eleven were dead or had gone beyond the seas, and four had taken the English side. Of the remaining twenty-five only seven would have escaped with partial forfeiture of their property, the remaining eighteen, if not protected by a special clause in their surrenders, would have been liable to be hanged under the provisions of the Cromwellian Act of Settlement. ​Thus the Cromwellian settlement meant the complete sweeping away of all Catholic landlords—old Irish, old English, new English—from all the counties east of the Shannon and from two of the six counties west of that river. But, it did not, as we have seen, involve the sweeping away of the mass of the inhabitants. These remained on, a despised but indispensable race, hewers of wood and drawers of water for their conquerors.
Such a clean sweep of the landowners of a whole country seems monstrous to us at the present day. But we must remember that the same generation had seen an almost equally clean sweep of the landlords from Bohemia, and from some of the Alpine provinces ruled by the Habsburgs, and that not so long before all Spain had applauded the expulsion from its shores of thousands of Catholic Christians, whose only crime was that in their veins was the taint real or alleged of Moorish blood.
The lands thus cleared of their owners were divided amongst two classes of colonists, adventurers and soldiers. The former, in 1642, had advanced to the government the sum of £360,000 for the purpose of putting down the Irish insurrection.
In return for this money they were promised by Act of Parliament an acre of land in Leinster for every 125. advanced, or one in Munster for every 8s., or one in Connaught for every 6s., or one in Ulster for every 4s. to be given them out of the estates of the insurgent Irish, as soon as the country was conquered. It must not be supposed that these sums represent the value of Irish land at that period. But the venture or ​adventure—hence the name Adventurers—was a speculation, a risky one, for the Irish might never be subdued, and, as it turned out, the speculators got no return for their money until about 1654 or 55 when half the forfeited lands in ten counties were divided among them. There were about 1,360 of these Adventurers, including Oliver Cromwell, who subscribed £600, John Hampden, who subscribed £1,000, and Oliver Cromwell's servant Elizabeth Austrey who adventured 200 pounds.
The greater part of the rest of the confiscated lands were distributed to the officers and soldiers—those who had landed with Cromwell in 1649, those who before that date had served for the Parliament in Leinster and Ulster, and those of the Munster Protestant forces who could show that they took part in bringing about the betrayal of Cork and the other garrisons to Cromwell in 1649. These men all received lands instead of their pay, which had been in arrears for years. Besides this the contractors and others, who had supplied the army with food and munitions and who had never been paid, were to receive lands instead of the million and three-quarter pounds due to them.
The lands were divided by lot among the soldiers and adventurers. For this purpose a survey of all the forfeited lands was made, accompanied by maps, the latter being the well-known Down Survey. Most of the Down Survey still exists and from it we can tell who were the owners of any particular piece of land in Ireland in 1641, for each parish map has annexed to it a list of all landowners in it in that year and the part of the parish each held is clearly marked on the map.
​First lots were drawn to decide in which province each regiment should take its lands. Then the particular county was decided in like way, and the special baronies in it. Then each company received its portion by lot, and finally each individual received as much of the land thus assigned to his company as would wipe off the arrears of pay due to him. The rate for County Cork, for instance, was 1000 acres for every £800 due. But a thousand acres in the Kerry mountains were only valued at £250, while in the Golden Vale of Tipperary they were valued at £1,100. Lands in Dublin were valued at £1,500, and in Kildare and Meath at £1,300 per thousand acres. Such lands as were over after satisfying the adventurers and soldiers were given to eminent friends of the republican cause in parliament and in particular to the regicides, i.e., those persons who had sentenced Charles I. to death. They were seventy in number and got about 120,000 acres of some of the best lands in Ireland.
To sum up. There are in Ireland twenty millions of English acres. Of these nine millions were left to the former owners, Protestants who had either proved Good Affection to the parliament, or had redeemed their estates by fines.
The remaining eleven millions were confiscated. Of these about half a million belonged to loyalist ​Protestants such as Lords Ormond, Inchiquin and Roscommon. The other ten and a half millions belonged in 1641 to Catholics. But of these about three millions were unprofitable lands, i.e., mountain, bog, copse wood, so that in 1641 the Catholics in Ireland owned about seven and a half millior. acres of good land.
Of this land we have seen that over eleven hundred thousand English acres of profitable lands were assigned in Connaught and Clare to certain comparatively "innocent" Catholics instead of their former estates. They also got the unprofitable lands adjoining or intermixed with the profitable ones they received.
Therefore about six and a half million acres of profitable land were divided up among the Cromwellians.
What were the results of this great transfer of property? Thirty-four thousand of the most vigorous of the Irish took service on the Continent, in Spain and other Catholic lands. The merchants who had made Galway the second port in the British Islands, and those who had for long been the source of the prosperity of Waterford and Kilkenny settled in France or in the Spanish dominions.
Many of their descendants flourished exceedingly in the wide lands where the Spanish flag flew.
Those of Waterford, at the Restoration, ​petitioned from Ostend, St. Malo, Cadiz and other places, even from far-off Mexico, to say that God had blessed their efforts while in exile and that they had gained considerable wealth by trade, and therefore hoped to be allowed to return home.
Of those landowners who had lost all, some were restored at the Restoration to their ancient estates. So too were some of those who had received lands in Connaught. The remainder of these stayed on in Connaught where their descendants hold to the present day the estates to which they were transplanted. But in the stress of the penal days in the 18th century many of them became Protestants.
Of the new settlers scarcely six of the adventurers founded families. Some forty years after the transplantation many of the children of Cromwell's soldiers could not speak a word of English. The private soldiers who received small grants of land sold them for trifling sums to their officers or to others. Dr. Petty, the surveyor, bought up great tracts of country in this way at very cheap prices. If they remained in Ireland they very generally married Irish women—though this was forbidden under very stringent penalties, and these women generally brought up their children as Catholics. Thus the projected plantation in great measure failed. There are said to be some parts of the country, notably Tipperary, which are almost entirely Catholic, though the names and often the appearance of the people clearly show that they are descended from Cromwell's Roundheads.
​The officers on the other hand bought up the soldiers' allotments, and also in many cases the lands assigned to the transplanted Irish in Connaught. They founded families many of which last to the present day.
And one result of the confiscation, a result which the present generation is seeing reversed by means of costly machinery and after generations of discord, was the almost complete disappearance from the island of a peasant proprietary.
* ↑ In general for the history of this period I have followed Prendergast's Cromwellian Settlement, and Dunlop: Ireland under the Commonwealth. For details re the settlement, see Hardinge in Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. XXIV. Bagwell and Gardiner should also be consulted.
* ↑ Cromwell had left Ireland on the 29th of May, 1650.
* ↑ It is probable that this estimate is far below the truth. In the early stages of the war the garrisons of Dublin and Drogheda carried on a veritable war of extermination against the natives. "The inhabitants being all destroyed by the English garrisons for fifteen miles round and the dogs only surviving, they fed on their masters' dead bodies, and had become so dangerous for passengers that the soldiers were careful to kill them also." (Prendergast, following Barnard). And the Census of 1659 attributed to Sir W. Petty gives the whole population as only about half a million. His published statistics and calculations cannot altogether be trusted.
* ↑ That is to say such of them as were still Protestants. Many of the descendants of the Elizabethan settlers were Catholics in 1641.
* ↑ These settlements in Antrim and Down had, as I have said before, come about through peaceful penetration. It is curious to find that the MacDonnells and Magees from the Isles were now looked on as being Irish because they were Catholics.
* ↑ Dunlop: Vol. I. CXXXIII.
* ↑ This was the date of the meeting of the Confederate Assembly which organised a regular government.
* ↑ January, 1652—3. A proclamation that all priests who do not leave within twenty days, or who return after leaving, win be subject to the penalties of the 27th Eliz.
* ↑ Lord Clanrickard, for instance, lived for a time unmolested in England. Cromwell or his government actually aided in obtaining the release of Inchiquin from the Barbary pirates into whose hands he had fallen.
* ↑ Golden, in Co. Tipperary; and Tromra, in Co. Clare. See Miss Hickson, Ireland in the Seventeenth Century, and the notes to O'Flaherty's Iar Connaught.
* ↑ The records of murders done by the English mostly come to us from the accounts of the English perpetrators themselves. So the massacres of Clonakilty, Carrickraines and Rathcoffey are known to us from English sources.
* ↑ So, too, any Catholics who could prove that they had been absent from Ireland during the whole of the specified period were to retain their estates.
* ↑ See the case of Lady Thurles an Englishwoman but a Catholic, mother of the Marquis of Ormonde, as set forth by Mr. Dunlop, Vol. II., p. 606. She had always helped the English to the best of her power, and had even assisted Cromwell himself; but the fact that she had continually resided in the Irish quarters prevented the judges from deciding that she had shown "constant good affection."
* ↑ Ormond stated to the Commissioners of the Parliament in 1646 that the "number and quality" of these "Loyal Papists" were considerable.Cox: History of Ireland.
* ↑ Another was Sir Daniel O'Brien of Doagh, near Ennistymon, in Co. Clare.
* ↑ This proviso exempted a very large number of landowners, especially the Lords of the Pale, from the penalties of clauses 1 and 3 of the Act.
* ↑ If this plan had been carried out the inhabitants of Achill, the Aran islands, Inishboffin, &c. should now be all of British descent. But the names of the present inhabitants, their language and characteristics show that the intermixture of British is so small as to prove that this scheme was never carried through, perhaps was never even attempted.
* ↑ So the Kilkenny estates of Wandesforde, son of the Master of the Rolls who in Strafford's time had ousted the O'Brennans of Idough were sequestrated until he obtained a decree of "good affection." Prendergast, p. 135.So also Lord Meath had great trouble in recovering his property.
* ↑ This at least is his own account.
* ↑ In the list of transplanted persons in the Ormond MSS. we find W. Spencer, late of Killcollman, "by virtue of an order of his Highness' Council." No acreage is given as assigned to him.
* ↑ Yet he does not seem to have been restored until the time of Chas. II. His property was set out in 1654 to Capt. Peter Courthorpe and others.Another of Spencer's grandsons, Hugoline, was also dispossessed of his property, and was restored as an "Innocent Papist" in Aug., 1663.
* ↑ Besides the Brownes of Kerry, the Bagenals of Carlow, the Wolverstons of Stillorgan, the Mastersons of Wexford lost their estates. In Limerick the Walshes of Abingdon, the Fittons of Any, the Rawleys or Raleighs, the Thorntons, and even a Cromwell or Cromwell all figure in the lists of forfeiting Irish Papists.
* ↑ This was apparently on the occasion of Strafford's projected plantation.
* ↑ At least from their names, Hoare and Silver, we may presume they were English. Mr. Fisher, Mr. Jones, Mr. Barber are also mentioned; they seem to have appeared for the Protestant delinquents.
* ↑ A fairly complete account of these proceedings is given in Prendergast. The Act of Attainder of 1657 excepted them from transplantation, and provided that they were to receive the equivalents for their former property in these two baronies. At the Restoration they were mostly dispossessed of their allotments without in all cases recovering their original property. The inhabitants of Fethard were also dispensed from transplanting, owing to the terms granted them by Cromwell.
* ↑ Journal of the Kilkenny Arch. Soc. Vol. 4 New Series, p. 72.
* ↑ These figures are given by Hardinge. But it is nearly certain that they are not complete. Thus he says that there was no transplantation from Wicklow. But the list in the Ormond MS. mentioned below gives four. Hardinge gives sixteen names from Co. Cork. The Ormond MSS. has about thirty, and the Index to the transplanters' certificates gives twenty-one. Hardinge gives sixty-six as the total number from Kerry; but the Index has ninety-six names from Kerry, of whom twenty-three were townsmen of Dingle, one of these being described as a mason and seven as merchants.
* ↑ Bonn states that in Tipperary among the "Tituladoes" there were sixty Irish, and in Carlow thirty in 1659. Some of these of course may have been Protestants.
* ↑ The Transplanters' Certificates for Kerry have some names such as O'Sullivan and O'Lyne, not to be found in the Ormond MS.
* ↑ See the case of Patrick French of Monivea as given by Prendergast.
* ↑ This is totally opposed to Hardinge's view. He holds that, the population of Connaught being comparatively small, the number of landlords was also small. A glance at the Books of Survey and Distribution will correct this error.
* ↑ Or allowing for an error in Petty' s survey, there may have been 1,400,000 English acres set out to the transplanted. But a large number never actually received the land due to them. The Irish agents in 1664 said that 156,000 acres were still due to transplanted persons.
* ↑ Old Series. 1899.There are two lists arranged alphabetically. The first takes up forty-nine pages with about 1,540 names. Some of these, however, occur more than once. The second has no names beginning with the first four letters of the alphabet. It has fourteen pages with about 450 names. Most of these are different from those in the first list; but some names are common to both.
* ↑ It would appear that many claimants never received allotments. Of the names in the two lists a very large number are from Connaught.A great difficulty is caused by the fact that only 580 grants to transplanted persons were made between 1675 and 1677 when their position was finally regularised; but see the next chapter.
* ↑ Political Anatomy.
* ↑ Several difficulties arising out of Petty's figures are given in the footnotes of Hull's edition of the Economic Writings of Sir W. Petty.
* ↑ Page 247, and following.
* ↑ The Leinster counties are Dublin, Louth, Kildare, Longford, Kilkenny and Wexford, with a total of 1,816 proprietors, of whom 621 were in Wexford. Cork had over 1,000, and Kerry nearly 550. In the five "Plantation Counties, about 20 of the 291 names given are those of English or Scotch Protestants. The exact total is 4,124, but it is probable that some names figure more than once, and there were certainly some loyal Protestants who forfeited outside the Plantation Counties.
* ↑ As far as one can make out, the estates of nearly all Catholics had been held to be forfeited, after the downfall of James II., but about one-fourth of the total had been "restored " in accordance with the articles of Limerick and Galway. Some proprietors also had been restored by special favours of the Crown. And some escaped through partial juries. Altogether perhaps about 600,000 English acres were thus restored.
* ↑ See notes to Mr. Philip Wilson's article on Ireland under Charles II. in Studies in Irish History, 1649—1773. Lord Clare (speech on the Union) gives the area transferred from Catholics to Protestants as 7,800,000 acres.
* ↑ Hardinge, On Surveys, Confiscations, etc., consequent on the rising of 1641. Trans. R. I. Acad., Vol. 24.
* ↑ Gardiner: History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, Chap. XLIV.
* ↑ These nine million acres comprised first the great estates of certain of the old Irish or old English lords who had become Protestants such as the Earls of Thomond and Barrymore and the Lord of Kerry (Lord Lansdowne's ancestor) and secondly the greater part of the lands confiscated or purchased under the Tudors and James I. We may perhaps estimate the total area of those confiscations at something under 8,000,000 acres.
* ↑ This is Hardinge's estimate, which quite disagrees with Petty, who assigns to the Catholics in 1641 two-thirds of the profitable lands in Ireland. Dr. Bonn follows Petty. But Hardinge declares that he made his estimate from the actual figures in the Books of Survey and Distribution, and the Down Survey.
* ↑ There is however but little foundation for the theory that the population of Tipperary is to a large measure of Cromwellian descent. According to the Census of 1659 there were then in the whole county 24,760 Irish and only 1,924 English.