In the early part of 1615 James gave his deliberate decision that plantations of some kind offered the best chance for civilising Ireland. In this way only could the local tyranny of native chiefs be got rid of, and the people improved by an intermixture of British accustomed to keep order and qualified to show a good example. The turn of Longford came next to that of Wexford, and with it was joined Ely O’Carroll, comprising the baronies of Clonlisk and Ballybritt in King’s County not contiguous to the rest of the plantation. In Ely there were no chief-rents or other legal incumbrances, but 200l. a year were due to the heirs of Sir Nicholas Malby out of the whole county of Longford and 120 beeves to Sir Richard Shaen the grantee of Granard Castle. These rent-charges were irregularly paid, and were the source of constant bickerings. There were no similar incumbrances in Ely, and neither there nor in Longford was there any pre-eminent chief at the moment, which made the task somewhat easier. It was part of the plan that there should in future be no O’Ferrall or O’Carroll with claims to tribal sovereignty.[148]
Attempt to apply the Wexford lesson.
The O’Ferralls.
A careful survey.
Ely O’Carroll
Cases of hardship.
Troubles from landless men.
It was not till towards the end of 1618 that the conditions of the plantation were at last settled. The correspondence and notes of the survey were submitted to a committee of the Privy Council consisting of Archbishop Abbot, Sir George Carew, the Earl of Arundel, and Secretary Naunton, and their report was acted upon; but a commission to carry out the scheme was not appointed until the following autumn. Chichester as well as St. John were members, and the great care which was taken seems to have made the plantation less unpopular than that of Wexford. Many objections indeed were made to acting upon such an old title as the King had to Longford, and to ignoring grants made in the late reign; though perhaps the lawyers could show that they had for the most part been nullified by the non-performance of conditions. The O’Ferralls had on the whole been loyal, and promises had been made to them. Whatever the arrangements were, it was evident that many natives would have no land, and it was urged that they would be better subjects it if was all given to them. Having no other means of living they would be driven to desperation and commit all manner of villanies, as the tribesmen of Ulster were ready to do if they got the chance. The King, however, was determined to carry out his plan, and the O’Ferralls yielded with a tolerably good grace, objecting not so much to giving up one-fourth of the country to settlers as to having to redeem Shaen’s and Malby’s rents out of the remainder. The Wexford misunderstanding was avoided by having a careful survey taken from actual measurements, and it was found that in Longford 57,803 acres of arable and pasture were available for the purposes of the plantation, the remainder, amounting to over 72,000 acres, being occupied by old grantees or by bogs and woods. Ely was better, 32,000 acres out of 54,000 being described as arable and pasture. The general order was that no freeholder should have less than 100 acres, and those who had less were to have leases for three lives or forty-one years under a planter or some more fortunate native. The unlucky ones generally and naturally complained that the measurements were inaccurate, and that they were thus unfairly reduced to ‘fractions.’ The undertakers, whether English or Irish, were to keep 300 acres in demesne about their houses. There seem to have been some cases of hardship even in the opinion of the Irish Government. Of these the most important was that of Sir John MacCoghlan in King’s County, who had fought bravely on the side of Government, but who, nevertheless, lost part of his property. As late as 1632 he was noted as a discontented man who ought to be watched, and his clansmen generally joined in the rebellion of 1641. As in the case of Wexford trouble came from those who were excluded from freehold grants. They were to have taken up the position of tenants, but could get no land at reasonable rates, and in 1622, after St. John had left Ireland, the Lords Justices reported that they were preparing to come to Dublin in multitudes. The discontent never died out, and Longford was infested with rebels or outlaws so that a rising was feared in 1827 and in 1832. Hadsor, who knew all about the matter, attributed the failure of the plantation to the way in which the natives had been treated, the ideas of King James not having been carried out in practice. Strafford’s strong hand kept things quiet for a time, but in 1641 Longford was the first county in Leinster to take part in the great rebellion.[149]
The undertakers non-resident.
The natives not attracted by short leases,
with stringent covenants.
A survey of the plantations hitherto made was taken in 1622, and the Commissioners reported that some of the undertakers in Wexford were sometimes resident, and that they had built strongly, though not within the specified time. Their colleague, Sir Francis Annesley, had his demesne stocked and servants on the spot; and it was suggested that he should be enjoined to reside. Some natives complained that they had been cheated, but the patentees had been long in quiet possession, and the Commissioners prudently refused to meddle. In Longford and Ely no undertakers were resident, ‘Henry Haynes and the widow Medhope only excepted.’ In Ely there was no actual provision for town, fort, or free school, though lands had been assigned; but Longford was better off in these respects. Twenty-acre glebes were assigned by the articles to sixteen parishes in Ely, but these had not been properly secured to the incumbents. In Longford the King made large grants to Lord Aungier and Sir George Calvert, which were satisfied out of the three-quarters supposed to be reserved for the natives. Those of the old inhabitants whose interest was too small for a freehold were expected to take leases from the undertakers, ‘but we do not find that they have any desire to settle in that kind.’ They were not attracted by the maximum term of three lives or twenty-one years, at a rent fixed by agreement or arbitration, distrainable within fifteen days, and with a right of re-entry after forty days; nor by covenants to build and enclose within four years.[150]
Plantation of Leitrim.
General ill-success of the smaller plantations.
The land unfairly divided.
The whole county of Leitrim was declared escheated, and in this case there were no settlers either from England or from the Pale. Mac Glannathy or Mac Clancy, head of the clan among whom Captain Cuellar suffered so much in the Armada year, was independent in the northern district, represented by the modern barony of Rossclogher. The rest of the county was dependent on the O’Rourkes. Some two hundred landholders declared themselves anxious to become the King’s tenants and submit to a settlement. Lord Gormanston claimed to hold large estates as representative of the Nangle family, who had been grantees in former days; but this title had been too long in abeyance. Leitrim was not a very inviting country, and the undertakers were very slow to settle; so that the business was not done until far into the new reign, and was never done thoroughly at all. Carrigdrumrusk, now Carrick-on-Shannon, had been made a borough for the Parliament of 1613, and the castle there was held for the King, but was of little use in preventing outlaws and cattle-drivers from passing between Leitrim and Roscommon. A more vigorous attempt was made at Tullagh, a little lower down the Shannon, where a corporation was founded and called Jamestown. The buildings were erected by Sir Charles Coote at his own expense, and he undertook to wall the place as an assize town for Leitrim. It was further arranged that the assizes for Roscommon should be held on the opposite bank, and the spot was christened Charlestown. But as a whole the settlement of Leitrim was not successful. At the end of 1629 Sir Thomas Dutton, the Scoutmaster-General, who had ample opportunities for forming an opinion, declared that the Ulster settlement only had prospered, and that the rest of Ireland was more addicted to Popery than in Queen Elizabeth’s time. The Jesuits and other propagandists had increased twentyfold. In Wexford, King’s County, Longford, and Leitrim corruption among the officials had vitiated the whole scheme of plantation and made it worse than nothing. Hadsor, who thoroughly understood the subject, said much injustice had been done to the natives, and that the Irish