Abstract
In recent years, the 400th anniversary of the commencement of the Ulster plantation, combined with the publication (and in some instances, republication) of R. J. Hunter's pioneering research in the field, has led to fresh interest in the plantation, its planning, operations, challenges and legacies, as reflected in numerous events, conferences and publications. This volume is the proceedings of one of those conferences, organised by Drs Brendan Scott and Cumann Seanchais Bhreifne, at Johnston Central Library, Cavan in October 2017. As Scott acknowledges, ‘the shadow of the late R. J. Hunter looms large over this collection’ (p. x) which is dedicated to his memory in recognition of his exceptional contribution in the field of Ulster plantation studies.
Featuring original scholarly contributions from specialists in history, historical geography, historical archaeology and anthropology, this collection approaches Ulster's plantation towns with fresh questions and presents a wealth of fascinating perspectives on how and why these towns developed as they did, often in very unexpected ways, during the seventeenth century.
Rachel Tracey and Audrey Horning's essay on the archaeology of the plantation towns is a very fitting opening contribution, showing that the towns reflected a ‘profound disconnect between what had been conceptualized and what was realized’ – a recurrent theme throughout the volume. These were ‘alive spaces’, ‘imperfect realizations of colonial ideologies … as dynamic and diverse as they were chaotic and not wholly functional’ (p. 18). Consequently, Tracey and Horning emphasise that in order to understand Ulster plantation towns, we must examine them from the inside out, from the ground up and most importantly, from the perspective of those who lived and worked there. Historical geographer, Jonathan Cherry also discusses that disconnect between what was planned and what transpired. He examines some concepts that informed plantation policy in general and towns, more specifically. In addition to highlighting the contribution of smaller plantation towns to the success of the plantation scheme as sites of colonial administration, Cherry shows that one of the unplanned features of plantation urbanisation was the emergence of a network of market towns across Ulster in response to the demands of the market-orientated economy. This proved significant as in addition to the urban network, an ‘urban mentality’, virtually unknown in Ulster in 1610, developed. The creation of this network of market towns was, according to Raymond Gillespie, an important feature of the commercial economy of plantation Ulster and its most significant long-term legacy. In his essay, Gillespie presents markets as vital sites of interaction between Gaelic Irish and settlers and shows that it was by developing a complex social structure and a service role that market towns extended their functions beyond their immediate areas and formed distinctive identities.
Annaleigh Margey deepens our understanding of the hierarchical nature of Ulster urban plantation settlement by exploring the layers below the formal level of the corporate town in County Londonderry. She contends that while corporate towns had the legal features of an urban settlement, smaller plantation villages and bawns left an important ‘proto-urban footprint’ on planted areas (p. 81). Margey explains that while two events – the defeat of the City of London at the Star Chamber in 1635 and the 1641 rebellion – disrupted the development of these smaller urban units, many survived and were redeveloped, forming the basis for significant village growth across County Londonderry.
In two complementary essays that bring hitherto overlooked contemporary urban sources to light, Bríd McGrath and Brendan Scott examine the administration of two plantation towns that failed to develop as expected. McGrath brings her very considerable knowledge of corporation records and operations to bear in examining an early minute book of the corporation of Coleraine, showing how after the town assumed responsibility for its own management post-1623, the changed composition of the town council proved detrimental to its development. Through her fascinating reconstruction of the early decades of the town's administration, McGrath explains how the unscrupulous mayor, Tristram Beresford managed to thrive and how his relentless pursuit of self-interest significantly damaged Coleraine's prospects. Similarly, Scott draws upon the corporation book of another Ulster plantation town, Belturbet, County Cavan (est. 1610), to recount how it was rebuilt following the destruction of the 1640s and how the corporation struggled to remodel Belturbet as an English and Anglican town from the 1650s onwards.
While the history of Strabane in this era has been well documented, William Roulston's essay on the town's proprietors, the aristocratic Hamiltons, provides a very clear and engaging account of the extraordinary vicissitudes of this influential Catholic family during the seventeenth century and highlights the importance of their continued support for Strabane's emergence as one of the more important provincial towns in eighteenth-century Ireland. Pivoting the focus away from landlords, Patrick Fitzgerald frames his investigation of Ulster towns’ handling of the poor during the period 1600–1750 within the wider contexts of Ireland, Britain and Europe. He stresses how the absence of buildings associated with management of the poor in plantation towns has led to ongoing public amnesia about this subject. Whilst acknowledging that religious denomination had a bearing on the distribution of relief and charity in Ulster, he argues that policy towards the poor in the towns was in fact ‘more flexible and nuanced than one might have imagined’ (p. 115), especially during periods of acute economic hardship.
Tackling once again the gulf between ‘the divergent interests of those who planned the colony, and those on the ground who put it into execution’ (p. 120), Gerard Farrell examines the native Irish presence in plantation towns. He argues convincingly that towns were not meant for the Irish, and that by 1641, the Irish had not become acculturated to town life to a significant degree. Equally, he acknowledges that just as it was not feasible to expel the Irish from undertaker precincts, neither was it possible to have towns that were entirely free of Irish denizens.
The last two essays in the volume focus on religion in the Ulster plantation. Working with little in the way of published scholarship or surviving sources for urban Catholicism in Ulster prior to the 1641 rising, Colm Lennon uncovers evidence of a burgeoning self-confidence among Ulster Catholics. While the design of new grid-planned towns is said to have limited the scope for the coexistence of different confessional groups, Lennon shows that urban Catholics had access to their own places of devotion within and beyond town walls, and that the Franciscans in particular had a decisive influence in promoting Catholic practice. Some readers may be intrigued to learn that the London companies encouraged Catholics to settle on their land and considered the appointment of at least two dozen resident Catholic priests, with a system of income. In a complementary contribution, Robert Armstrong focuses on how the first generations of Protestant clergymen went about reforming religion in newly planted towns and villages of Ulster. The Presbyterian movement in the 1640s is shown to have generated tensions within the Church of Ireland. Having traced the deteriorating situation during the 1650s and the split over conformity sought after the Restoration (1660), Armstrong concludes that ‘by that point Protestantism had been sufficiently well planted in urban Ulster as to have sprouted diverse shoots’ (p. 188).
As acknowledged by the editor in the introduction, this volume does not provide answers to all questions and problems posed by the Ulster plantation. More work needs to be done, including integration of the experiences of women, as alluded to by Bríd McGrath. That said, the editor, contributors and Four Courts Press are to be congratulated on this excellent, handsomely illustrated scholarly volume.