The region that is now Northern Ireland was long inhabited by native Gaels who were Irish-speaking and Catholic. It was made up of several Gaelic kingdoms and territories, and was part of the province of Ulster. During the 16th century English conquest of Ireland, Ulster was the province most resistant to English control. In the Nine Years' War (1594–1603), an alliance of Ulster Irish lords fought against the English government in Ireland. Following Irish defeat at the Battle of Kinsale, many of these lords fled to mainland Europe in 1607. Their lands were confiscated by the Crown and colonized with English-speaking Protestant settlers from Britain, in the Plantation of Ulster. This led to the founding of many of Ulster's towns and created a lasting Ulster Protestant community with ties to Britain. The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began in Ulster. The rebels wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and to roll back the Plantation. It developed into ethnic conflict between Irish Catholics and British Protestant settlers, and became part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–53), which ended with the English Parliamentarian conquest. Further Protestant victories in the Williamite-Jacobite War (1688–91) solidified Anglican Protestant rule in the Kingdom of Ireland. The Williamite victories of the Siege of Derry (1689) and Battle of the Boyne (1690) are still celebrated by some Protestants in Northern Ireland. Many more Scots Protestants migrated to Ulster during the Scottish famine of the 1690s.