The Restless Republic by Anna Keay

Author:Anna Keay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2022-01-31T22:00:40+00:00

By 1657 the project to effect an ethnic separation of Ireland had descended into a grim muddle. Most Irish people had lost some or all of their lands but still remained bitterly reluctant to move to the western enclave set aside for them. At the same time the flood of new settlement and investment anticipated by the various Acts of Parliament, and clearly needed if the fields were to sway with wheat once again, was not materializing. A thousand London investors and more than 30,000 soldiers had been expected to settle. In reality, the wealthy ‘adventurers’ treated their holdings as investments to be sold on and while perhaps half the soldiers did settle, as many decided against starting new lives as Irish yeomen farmers. Those who did take up confiscated lands quickly realized the truth of Gookin’s argument that they could do little without an experienced workforce. William Petty was soon contending with a flood of requests from influential Protestants for specific groups of Catholics to be exempted from transplantation. Among them was a letter from Richard Cromwell asking that his footman’s brother, Daniel Machona of Munster, be spared transplantation, ‘for that it will be the utter ruen of him and his family’. Those in authority were capable of feeling a pity for the plight of individual Irishmen and women which never extended to the people as a whole. In many cases, including Daniel Machona’s, Catholics lost the ownership of their lands but, rather than move west, stayed on to farm them as tenants of new Protestant masters. In the towns, from which Catholics had been formally excluded, many again remained despite the repeated instructions to leave, though under the terms of the new corporations they were barred from positions of authority.32

In the end the solution that was found was to draw a veil over the whole transplantation project by simply acting as if it had been accomplished. When Parliament considered Irish affairs in June 1657 the ‘Act for the Attainder of the Rebels in Ireland’ was passed. Despite its hawkish title, this piece of legislation effectively drew to a close the process of transplantation and reallocation of lands. Its opening line set the scene: ‘The Rebellion begun in Ireland, the three and twentieth of October, 1641. is, and is hereby Declared to be Appeased and Ended.’ Those who had received lands had their ownership confirmed, the pursuit of malefactors was effectively stopped and reference was made to various specific groups of Catholics who were to be allowed to remain. It was hardly a reversal of what had happened, but it drew a line of sorts under this ugly chapter of Ireland’s history. The Down Survey was complete. All the books and maps were to be gathered together and within three months to be set among the records of the government of Ireland.33

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