The Battle of Kinsale, along with the "Flight of the Earls", marked the end of the old Gaelic order, and established England as conqueror of Ireland. What followed next -- the 17th Century "Plantations" -- were perhaps the most important development in Irish history since arrival of the Celts. They divided Ireland apartheid-like into two hostile camps.

Under these Plantations -- the Ulster Plantation (1609), the Cromwellian Plantation (1652) and the Williamite Plantation (1693) -- 81% of the productive land in Ireland was confiscated from the native Irish (Gaelic-Irish and Norman-Irish alike, but invariably Catholic), and transferred to new immigrants (invariably Protestant) from Scotland and England. The Plantations impacted Ireland in two major ways. First, they introduced into Ireland a new community -- eventually 25% of the populace -- which differed radically from the natives not only in religion, but also in culture, ethnicity, and national identity. Second, in Ireland's overwhelmingly agrarian economy -- where land equaled wealth and power (and vice versa) -- the Plantations caused a massive transfer of wealth and power to non-native landlords, whose backbreaking rents then thrust 85% of the natives into crushing poverty and degradation. The Plantations are the root cause of the class warfare (rich landlord versus poor tenant) and religious/cultural clashes that have plagued Ireland since 1610.

Plantations were the medieval equivalent of "ethnic cleansing" in that -- in theory at least -- all occupants of confiscated land were to be evicted and resettled in Connacht where they would be less of a military threat. Anti-Catholic animus played a role in the Plantations, but other motivations were more important. For the new immigrants, the principal motivation was fertile land at bargain rents. For the Crown, Plantations would deprive dissident Irish lords of the land that was their only real source of power; and further, there would be established within Ireland a loyal non-Irish minority which would serve as an unpaid police force to keep dissident Irish in check. Halfhearted attempts at plantation had been made under Mary in the 1550s, and under Elizabeth in the 1580s, but neither had instilled the pro-English mind set sought by the Crown. But after the "flight of the earls", the time seemed right for a serious plantation program.

Although nominally directed at the aristocracy, the Plantations also devastated peasants, who suffered the loss of their property rights under the ancient Gaelic law of gravelkind *, which previously had virtually guaranteed them a decent living from the soil. It turned out that peasants were needed for hard labor, so many of them, despite the original "resettlement in Connacht" plan, were allowed to remain as farm laborers or tenant-farmers, but at low wages or backbreaking rents that thrust them into abject poverty. Predictably, both in resentful peasants and in their Gaelic lords, there developed a 285 year obsession -- sometimes violent, sometimes political -- to overturn or modify the confiscations via "land reform", a term which (depending on time and place) might mean anything from a complete reversal of the confiscations to a modest improvement in tenants' rights.

The first 17th Century plantation (the "Ulster Plantation") involved confiscation of three million acres (about 30% of the island), all in six counties in west and central Ulster. The Ulster confiscations were directed almost exclusively at the Gaelic lords and their supporters who had been defeated at Kinsale: O'Neill, O'Donnell, O'Reilly, O'Hanlon, O'Doherty and others. The official plantation indirectly encouraged the much heavier unsponsored migration of working class Presbyterians from Scotland to Counties Down and Antrim. These migrations permitted eviction of native Catholics in favor of new Presbyterian settlers, whose descendants remain dominant in Northern Ireland even today **. The Ulster Plantation has been described as England's only successful colony in Ireland.

The Norman-Irish lords -- now called "Old English" to distinguish them from "New English" settlers and the "Gaelic Irish"-- were largely unaffected by the Ulster Plantation; but soon, on a large scale, they found themselves victims of New English "discoverers" whose business was to find defects in native Irish land titles, resulting in land forfeitures to the Crown (plus commissions for the discoverers). Then in 1625 James I, who was thought to be a secret Catholic, was succeeded by Charles I (r. 1625-49). Charles was not particularly anti-Catholic -- his wife was Catholic -- but the "Old English" deemed it prudent to cooperate in a deal proposed by Charles. At Charles' urging, they contributed 120,000 to Charles for his war with Spain, and Charles agreed to modest reforms known as "the Graces", the most important of which was a law (already on the books in England) confirming title in any person who had possessed land for 60 years or more. But after accepting the cash, Charles yielded to pressure from Parliament and reneged on formalizing "the Graces".

The Rebellion of 1641 sought to redress a variety of grievances, including the "Graces" grievance, by exploiting a bitter power struggle between Charles and the English Parliament. By way of background, for centuries Parliament had been wresting more and more power from a reluctant Crown, creating an ongoing conflict. (Supporters of the Crown were called "Royalists", supporters of Parliament were "Parliamentarians".) When Elizabeth died in 1603, James VI of Scotland, a Stuart, acceded to the English throne as James I. This gave Scotland and England a single king, even though the countries remained independent. But this actually escalated the conflict, rather than reducing it. Now, superimposed on the Royalist-Parliamentarian conflict were warring factions of religious zealots: Presbyterians (who dominated in Scotland) versus Anglicans (who dominated in England), not to mention Catholics (who enjoyed considerable empathy from the Stuart monarchs, some of whom were Catholic). When the Puritans won a narrow majority in the House of Commons, Charles (supported by the Anglican church) literally found himself on the verge of a civil war against Parliament, which already was arranging military support from Presbyterian Scotland.

Sir Phelim O'Neill led the Rebellion of 1641, which began with skirmishing in Ulster, during which as many as 12,000 Protestant non-combatants were killed. The rising actually was rooted in disputes over land -- no surprise here -- and to a lesser extent over religion, but O'Neill insisted that his forces were simply supporting the King against a belligerent Parliament. This pressured the "Old English", who had Royalist leanings, to join O'Neill's Gaelic forces in an uneasy alliance, the "Kilkenny Confederation". Soon, no Irishman could avoid taking sides, creating surprising alliances: some Catholics supported Parliament, while some Scottish Presbyterians joined O'Neill's Royalists. Even the Pope got involved; he dispatched to Ireland a papal nuncio, Cardinal Rinuccini, who persuaded the rebels to reject a proposed compromise because it did not restore Catholicism to its pre-Reformation position in Ireland. The rebels mounted a seven year insurgency which, if all had gone smoothly, might have led to a permanent accommodation with a divided England. In fact, however, the principal effect of the rebellion was to trigger the English Civil War, in which the king and parliament finally went to war with each other. Parliament's army, led by Oliver Cromwell (a Congregationalist member of Parliament) defeated Charles in a two phase war. Following a trial, Charles I was beheaded (1649) and the monarchy was abolished.

In 1649, Cromwell brought his army to Ireland and quashed the rebellion with a savagery that has become legendary. After town of Drogheda had surrendered, Cromwell's troops massacred 3,500 residents, including unarmed women and children. At Wexford, he perpetrated a similar massacre. Cromwell regarded the massacres as appropriate retribution for the deaths of the non-combatant Ulster Protestants in 1641. The rebellion was soon over.

Cromwell and his Puritans spelled disaster for all Catholics, but particularly for the Norman-Irish (a.k.a. "Old English"). Puritans were virulently anti-Catholic, and England's traditional tolerance for the "Old English" (vis-à-vis "Gaelic Irish") quickly became extinct, with both communities now treated as Catholic enemies of England. It was during the Cromwellian era (1649-60) that anti-Catholic animus reached its highest level in Irish history. The "New English" enthusiastically embraced the government's anti-Catholic policy, not only because they were anti-Catholic, but also because it preserved their privileged position.

The Cromwellian Plantation followed the war. It was the largest and most acrimonious of the confiscations, reducing Catholic ownership of land another 37%, from 59% to 22% Whereas the Ulster Plantation had confiscated land principally from the Gaelic-Irish, the Cromwellian Plantation took land largely from "Old English" Catholics (who had joined the rebellion hesitantly and only to show their support for the king), and transferred it to Cromwell's soldiers (in lieu of back pay) and to investors in the war effort. By the mid 1660s, the Cromwellian and Ulster Plantations had created a huge landlord class, including the oft-vilified absentee landlords, whose rental income often permitted them to lead lives of leisure, while backbreaking rents had thrust the native Irish into abject poverty, with 85% of the populace living at subsistence level. This laid the foundation for class warfare -- rich versus poor, or more accurately, rich Protestant landlord versus poor Catholic tenant -- which later erupted as the "land wars".

In 1688-90, the old line Irish (the descendants of the pre-17th Century Irish, including both Gaelic-Irish and Norman-Irish Catholics) arose again when they took sides in a war between two claimants to the English Crown. They supported the hereditary and rightful claimant, James II, against the man who had deposed him, William of Orange. In England, James was seen as representing both Royalists and Catholics, while William represented the Parliamentarian and Protestant factions. In Ireland, though, this particular war, unlike the Rebellion of 1641, was seen unequivocally as a war between Catholic and Protestant. Ironically, the Pope supported William, because a James victory would only add to the power of the already worrisome King of France, Louis XIV.

Again, some English history is essential. With Cromwell as the dominant figure in Parliament, the English throne had remained vacant since Charles I was beheaded in 1649. When Cromwell died in 1658, however, the Puritans began to lose control, and in 1660 they resolved their differences with the Royalists through a series of compromises known as the "Restoration". Under it, the Stuart monarchy was restored, but subject to a power sharing agreement with Parliament. Charles II (son of the beheaded Charles I) was brought back from exile to take the throne. The Anglican Church was reaffirmed as the "established" Church, but Charles II, whose father had been executed in part because of religious differences, saw fit to accord Catholics a high degree of tolerance (or benign neglect).

In 1684, Charles II was succeeded by his Stuart brother James II. James, who had converted to Catholicism in 1671, and was an advocate of an absolutist monarchy, unnerved the establishment. In his brief four year reign as King, James II alienated virtually every power base in England through a series of measures designed to increase the power of the Crown and to increase the civil rights of Catholics. James' most ominous initiative was recruiting a predominantly Catholic army in Ireland, and then partly transferring it to England. When a son was born to James in 1688, thereby insuring a Catholic succession, a plot known as the "Glorious Revolution" was hatched to overthrow James II.

James' grand-daughter Mary, and her Dutch Protestant husband, William of Orange (who was also James' nephew), accepted the invitation of several English notables to invade England, to overthrow James and to accede to the throne. When William arrived in England in November 1688, his partisans arose in rebellion in Yorkshire and elsewhere. Meanwhile James' forces deserted, and James himself fled to France. The coup d' etat was bloodless. In 1689, William and Mary were declared joint sovereigns, William III and Mary II. James II had been ousted after only four years.

But James' Catholic army in Ireland remained intact; and in an effort to regain his rightful throne, James promptly began recruiting new Irish and French troops from his exile in France. He shrewdly exploited Irish resentment over land, promising old line Irish that if his war was successful, they would recover their lands and power.

The first confrontation arose when James sent Catholic troops to Derry (then a Protestant city) to replace the existing Protestant garrison. Derry's leaders decided to welcome the new troops in the customary way, but this was highly controversial among Derry's inhabitants. Then 13 apprentice boys took matters into their own hands, seized the keys to the city gates, and slammed the gates in the faces of King James' troops. A lengthy siege of Derry followed, but William's troops finally arrived to relieve the inhabitants. Apprentice Boys Day is still a major Protestant holiday in Northern Ireland.

In March 1689, James arrived in Ireland to take charge of his army (25,000 strong). He also presided over a new and largely Catholic Parliament, which voted to overturn the earlier plantations. In June 1690, William of Orange and his army (36,000 troops, mostly non-Irish) arrived to do battle.

At the Battle of the Boyne (July 1, 1690), William's army handily defeated James' forces. In military terms, it was not a decisive victory, since Irish losses were small and their army lived to fight another day. But James immediately fled back to France, thereby (in European minds) effectively abandoning his claim to the throne.

Under Patrick Sarsfield, the Irish (with some French support) continued the fight for more than a year before suffering a devastating defeat at Aughrim. Finally, Sarsfield negotiated an honorable surrender embodied in the Treaty of Limerick (1691). Because William was anxious to move his troops to Flanders for the war against France, and also because he wanted to put behind him any challenges to the legitimacy of his reign, the Treaty was surprisingly generous to Catholics. It provided (1) that Catholics would have the same religious liberty enjoyed under Charles II, and (2) that those still resisting William, if they took an Oath of Allegiance, would be pardoned and allowed to keep their property, practice professions and bear civilian arms. Sarsfield demanded that these concessions apply not only to his own troops, but also to the entire Catholic community: It was "the first thing insisted upon by them, and agreed to by us", according to one of William's negotiators. But when the formal Treaty was presented to the English and Irish Parliaments for ratification, this latter provision -- the infamous "missing clause" -- was omitted, thereby facilitating the enactment anti-Catholic Penal laws, over the objection of King William.

Under Patrick Sarsfield, the Irish (with some French support) continued the fight for more than a year before suffering a devastating defeat at Aughrim. Finally, Sarsfield negotiated an honorable surrender embodied in the Treaty of Limerick (1691). Because William was anxious to move his troops to Flanders for the war against France, and also because he wanted to put behind him any challenges to the legitimacy of his reign, the Treaty was surprisingly generous to Catholics. It provided (1) that Catholics would have the same religious liberty enjoyed under Charles II, and (2) that those still resisting William, if they took an Oath of Allegiance, would be pardoned and allowed to keep their property, practice professions and bear civilian arms. Sarsfield demanded that these concessions apply not only to his own troops, but also to the entire Catholic community: It was "the first thing insisted upon by them, and agreed to by us", according to one of William's negotiators. But when the formal Treaty was presented to the English and Irish Parliaments for ratification, this latter provision -- the infamous "missing clause" -- was omitted, thereby facilitating the enactment anti-Catholic Penal laws, over the objection of King William.

The Treaty also contemplated that Sarsfield and more than 10,000 Irish troops would leave Ireland for the Continent. They did so -- the celebrated "flight of the 'Wild Geese'" -- and became legendary soldiers in the armies of France and other continental powers.

There ensued the third and final wave of 17th Century plantations (the "Williamite Plantation"), which reduced Catholic ownership of land from 22% to 14%.

Short term, the plantations were enormously successful for England. In 1603, before the Battle of Kinsale, about 95% of land in Ireland was owned by Catholics; by 1701, less than a century later, only 14% was owned by Catholics, an aggregate transfer of 81% of all productive land in Ireland. Further, the percentage of non-Irish in the population had been increased from 5% to 25%. It is possible that the Crown expected the Irish and British cultures to merge eventually (with English culture predominating, naturally), but of course this did not happen. Instead, the Plantations divided Ireland, apartheid-like, into two hostile camps, a socio-economic tinder box virtually certain to eventually explode.

--In one camp was 75% of the populace: Poverty stricken, landless, ethnically Irish (Gaelic-Irish or Norman-Irish), Gaelic speaking, Catholic, and powerless; these descendants of pre-17th Century natives thought of themselves as Irish, not English, and were more hostile than ever before towards their English conquerors.

--In the other camp was 25% of the populace: Affluent landed gentry, ethnically British (English or Scots), English speaking, Protestant (Anglican [10%] and Presbyterian [15%]), and politically dominant; these immigrants thought of themselves as the Crown's colony in Ireland, not as Irishmen (although within a few generations they began to regard themselves as a "Protestant [Irish] nation").

"Catholic versus Protestant" has been the convenient shorthand to describe divisions within Ireland, but this is overly simplistic. The important dividing line was between a conquering people (who happened to be British, English speaking and Protestant) and a vanquished people (who happened to be Irish, Gaelic speaking and Catholic). The conquerors then confiscated the land and wealth of Ireland, thus creating the class warfare which has long plagued Ireland: rich landlord versus poverty stricken tenant. No one would deny that religion, ethnicity, language and culture were and still are important components in the mutual antagonism -- particularly in segregating an individual into one of the two camps -- but the sheer longevity of these hostilities is attributable to enduring disparities in power and wealth.


PART 7 FOOTNOTE:

*  Under gravelkind, land was the common property of society, subject to preferential rights of families who worked or lived on it. And although the Gaelic lord held nominal title to land, he did so as trustee for the community, i.e., he had no power to transfer or to extinguish the community's rights in such land. But when English courts ruled that gravelkind was illegal, it followed that confiscations from the Gaelic lords also terminated peasants' rights.

** Created in 1920, Northern Ireland consists of six counties: Armagh, Londonderry (originally Colerain), Tyrone and Fermanagh (all planted counties), plus Antrim and Down (which received major unsponsored migrations, but were not planted). The historic province of Ulster comprised all of these six counties, plus three counties now in the Republic of Ireland: Donegal and Cavin (both planted counties) plus Monaghan (which never was planted).