the whole of the six "Plantation Counties."[1] Others again give most misleading accounts of the extent of the confiscation. All these points deserve attention.[2]
First, as to the actual state of affairs in Ulster at the moment of the Flight of the Earls. By law the present counties of Derry, Donegal, Tyrone, and Armagh were, except for the Church lands, practically owned in fee simple by five individuals, viz., the earls of Tirconnell and Tyrone, O'Dogherty, O'Hanlon, and O'Neill of the Fews.[3] In these four counties then. Royal grants together with the greed of the chiefs had combined to deprive the clansmen of all legal titles to land. Rory O'Donnell had no sooner obtained a grant in general terms of Tirconnell than he induced all his subject chiefs to make surrenders to him, and to acknowledge him as owner in fee of the whole county. Even Mac Swiney na Doe, who, as a reward for his desertion of the Irish side during the rebellion, had got a grant of all the lands of his clan from Elizabeth, was induced to surrender this grant to O'Donnell.[4]
- ↑ For instance the Rev. Kingsmill Moore in his Irish History for Young Readers implies that the six counties were the lands of the Earls.
- ↑ Bright says "Three quarters of the worst land was restored to the Irish"; O'Connor Morris and Froude have substantially the same statement.The Spectator habitually includes Antrim and Down in the "Plantation Counties."
- ↑ One or two of the O'Neills had been assigned estates independent of the Earl of Tyrone; and Neal Garve O'Donnell had been promised a large slice of Tyrconnell. It does not appear that he had received any patent for his lands. For the O'Neills see Calendar of State Papers, 1605, pp. 320 and following.
- ↑ See Calendar of State Papers, 1605, p. 320, for an account of Rory O'Donnell's proceedings. He had induced the Mac Swineys, O'Boyles, and "other ancient gents inhabitants of Tyrconnell, to surrender their several estates in their lands."
