A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes by Jonathan Bardon

Author:Jonathan Bardon [Bardon, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780717157549
Publisher: Gill & Macmillan

Weavers, too, composed verse during the long hours they spent at the loom. Not all were content, however. Ulster landlords were able to raise the rents year after year, and the county grand juries increased the local tax, known as the ‘cess’. Clergy of the Church of Ireland increased the burden of tithes, the compulsory payment farmers of every religion had to make to the Established Church. Rents quintupled in many areas between 1710 and 1770, and yet in the same period the average price of linen cloth rose only by twenty per cent. The sense of hopelessness created by these circumstances is encapsulated in the words of Ulster’s most famous ballad of emigration:

For the rent is getting higher, and I can no longer stay,

So fare well unto ye bonny, bonny Slieve Gallon Brae.…

But these days are now all over, for I am far away,

So fare well unto ye bonny, bonny Slieve Gallon Brae.

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