Plantation (Ireland)

As Plantation ( Engl. , Planting ',' settlement ') are in Ireland measures of the Kingdom of England , especially in the early modern period referred to the establishment of English , Scottish (→  Ulster-Scots ) and Welsh immigrants in Britain's neighboring island have been aimed.

The first attempts to settle the British in Ireland were made under Henry VIII (1509–1547) and especially under Elizabeth I (1558–1603). These took place in what is now the Irish counties Offaly and Laois . Further plantations were later the Munster Plantation (after the historic province of Munster in Southern Ireland; late 16th century) and above all the Ulster Plantation (after the historic province of Ulster in Northern Ireland; early 17th century).

The Ulster Plantation

While the historic Irish province of Connacht (north-west Ireland ), which was unfavorable for more intensive agriculture , was largely spared by plantations, the Ulster Plantation was the one that was most successful in the long term from an Anglo-Scottish perspective. It went down in history as one of the main causes of today's Northern Ireland conflict.

In the years 1603 to 1660, after the Irish defeat against the Kingdom of England in the Nine Years' War (at that time England was already in personal union with the Kingdom of Scotland ) and the associated " flight of the counts " from the Irish island, English and Scots became Protestant faith in the Ulster region partly forcibly resettled , partly attracted materially. This settlement of well-to-do, already somewhat industrial Protestants in an area with predominantly poor, rural Catholics laid the foundation for the centuries-old conflict between the various sections of the population. From this it becomes clear that the Northern Ireland conflict has first and foremost nationalist - imperialist or - colonialist roots; the now so prominent religious conflicts between long-established Irish Catholics and resettled British Protestants are more a consequence than a cause of this historical British policy.

literature

• Northern Ireland past and present . Northern Ireland - Past and Present. In: Jürgen Elvert (Ed.): HMRG  - Supplements . tape 9 . Franz Steiner Verlag , Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 978-3-515-06102-5 , chapter: John McCavitt : An Irish Trilogy. (English), p. 27–41 ( book from Steiner-Verlag [accessed March 19, 2015] 573 pages).

• Nicholas Canny : Making Ireland British, 1580-1650 . New edition. Oxford University Press , Oxford 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-925905-2 (654 pages, paperback; English).

• Pádraig Lenihan : Confederate Catholics at War, 1641-49 (=  Studies in Irish History ). Cork University Press, Cork 2000, ISBN 978-1-85918-244-4 (260 pages, hardcover; English).

• Michael MacCarthy-Morrogh : The Munster Plantation: English migration to Southern Ireland, 1583-1641 . Clarendon Press (OUP), New York 1986, ISBN 978-0-19-822952-0 (328 pages, hardcover; English).