The Planting of Ulster

Justin McCarthy
1903
Chapter VI | Start of Chapter

Now began in good earnest the English occupation of Ulster. It may seem surprising to readers of the present day that Ulster was the last of the territorial divisions to submit to English occupation. The later insurrection of Tyrone and Tyrconnel supplied the most convenient excuse for applying to the northern province the policy of confiscation. Six of the Ulster counties were at one stroke proclaimed to be the property of the Crown, and the land was parcelled out among English and Scotch commercial and trading companies. Some of the successors to these companies still retain property in Ulster. The Irish who had owned the soil or worked upon it were forced to wander over the country in quest of a living, and were in many cases reduced to a lingering death by starvation. Many of those not actually pauperized found their way to the Continent, and there took arms in the service of some Sovereign hostile to England. From that time, for many generations, almost every great army on the Continent had in its ranks and in its higher positions Irish exiles, some of whom made their names famous on foreign battle-fields in war against England.

Map of Ireland