num_pages: 64
description: The Caldwells were originally a Scottish episcopalian family who settled in the Enniskillen area during the early seventeenth-century Ulster Plantation. Later in the century they bought a somewhat isolated estate centred on the western and northern shores of Lower Lough Erne, renaming the dwelling house Castle Caldwell. Their remarkably comprehensive family archives demonstrate the sometimes contradictory political and economic forces bearing down on such Anglo-Irish families during the second half of the eighteenth century. Sir James, the fourth baronet, was the most energetic and active member of the family. He was simultaneously a loyal upholder of the British connection, the Protestant constitution and the rights of the Irish parliament. He maintained a voluminous correspondence with leading figures in the cultural and political life of the time, including Dr Samuel Johnson, David Garrick and Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder. As an enlightened improving landlord he championed schemes for Irish economic development and, despite the difficult physical environment on his estate, he energetically experimented with tree planting, with flax cultivation, linen manufacture, crop rotations and selective livestock breeding. Issues underpinning the Protestant Ascendancy.
language: English
title: Castle Caldwell, County Fermanagh: Life on a West Ulster Estate, 1750-1800
titlecomplete: Castle Caldwell, County Fermanagh: Life on a West Ulster Estate, 1750-1800 (Maynooth Studies in Local History)
series: Maynooth Studies in Local History 
publisher: Four Courts Pr Ltd