The Ulster Plantation was a complex system of double resettlement: from Britain to Ireland and from Ireland towards the Continent (an estimated 100,000 in the first half of the seventeenth century). Roughly half of these Irish migrants ended up settling in territories controlled by the Spanish Habsburgs, achieving remarkable success and acceptance, although many more … Read more
The establishment of a Diocesan Library and the Diocesan Free School were intended to provide the diocese of Derry with a seat of learning. Established in 1617, shortly after the appointment of George Downham as bishopand following the visit to Derry of two assistants of the Irish Society, George Smithies and Matthias Springham, the latter decided … Read more
The State has always been quick to enlist schools as agents of public policy, not least in Ireland, both pre- and post-independence. This was particularly so at the time of the Reformation, when Tudor legislation sought to establish a system of parish elementary schools and diocesan grammar schools throughout the land. These ambitious schemes, whereby … Read more
Disappointingly little remains of the original manuscripts dating from the Plantation’s early decades in this collection, owing in part to a fire in London’s Guildhall in 1786. Nevertheless, the inclusion of later copies of items dating from 1609, such as a table of lands and landholders, helps in reconstructing other elements of the Plantation’s early … Read more
After the Nine Years’ War, pardons given to the Ulster Irish lords who had risen in revolt against the Crown suggest a power vacuum in the northern province and an impecunious state in no position to fill it. Attempts had been made to shire Ulster and impose English law from the 1580s, but following the … Read more