Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/162

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
150
CONFISCATION IN IRISH HISTORY

the case of the mass of the population. The figures, as given in [[author: William Henry Hardinge|Hardinge]]'s printed account of it, show for Munster out of 153,000 inhabitants only 14,000 English and for Leinster only 24,000 out of a total of 155,000. Even in Ulster out of a total of 104,000 the English and Scots combined only numbered 40,600. These figures are perhaps not altogether to be trusted, for it seems impossible to believe that the total population of Ulster in 1659 was so small, and that the total British population was only 86,000 out of a total for the whole island of but little over 500,000. But they show that the vast majority of the population east of the Shannon was not removed to Connaught.

As for the Ulster landowners the lists in the Ormond MS. to be mentioned presently only contain eighteen Ulster names. But these lists apparently are not complete, for they contain no O'Donnells, although it seems quite certain that the O'Donnell families of Newport and Westport in Co. Mayo were transplanted from Ulster at this period.[1]

As to the landlords in Connaught and Clare it is not true that they were left undisturbed as some writers appear to believe. They had to stand their trial like all others, and according to the amount of guilt or innocence established in their cases, lose all, or two-thirds or one-third of their lands. And it does not follow that they were not moved from their former estates. Some of them no doubt were allowed their proportions out of their former properties. Most of them, however, were moved

  1. The Transplanters' Certificates for Kerry have some names such as O'Sullivan and O'Lyne, not to be found in the Ormond MS.