Migratory flows (16th–19th century)

Originally, the colonisation was run by private undertakers. But this attempt proved inconclusive and Elisabeth's administration took the matter in hand : it launched a plantation process whereby it moved English and Scottish farmers in on lands taken from the Irish. Though not relying on slavery like in the New World colonies, the plantation operation does bear similarities with the conquest of the American West. It feeds into a cultural, economic, political and religious cleavage which split the Irish population into two groups : on the one hand English and Scottish Protestants, protected by English garrisons and enjoying political rights (elections of MPs), on the other hand Catholic Irish and Old English perceived as backward peoples.

The Plantation movement grew first in two regions : Laois and Offaly, close to the Pale borders. From the middle of the 16^th century, the English established English farmer-soldiers on the land confiscated from the “rebel” families of the O'Moores and the O'Connors^[1]. Then, in 1590 they founded Trinity College in Dublin, there to become the centre of Anglican proselytism in Ireland. Further north, Scottish Presbyterians sought a foothold on the Ulster coast. The movement gained momentum from 1605, when the Scots procured land on which they organised the immigration of fellow countrymen. This was a private initiative that turned the counties of Down and Antrim into nuclei of Scottish settlement. Soon the English state was taking charge of the colonisation.

With this, the plantation operation expanded notably. It rested on three principles. First, in order to prevent the destruction by “rebels” of the new farms, the English decided to keep the Planters^[2] together in the neighbourhood of new and garrison towns – to which Londonderry, in the North of Ulster owes its current configuration (and name). Furthermore, the new landowners must not take on Irish tenants ; they must bring them over from England or Scotland. Finally the Irish landowners who have not been expropriated may only occupy one quarter of Ulster while the rest of the autochthon population must be re-located around protestant cities and garrison towns. A plantation programme was programmed for six Ulster counties as follows : Coleraine, Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh, Tyrone and Donegal. Some smaller settlements were set up from 1618-1620 in the county of Wexford and in the centre of the island.

The English authorities granted each new landowner between 1,000 and 2,000 acres, equivalent to 10 km² minimum provided they moved therein forty-eight English-speaking Protestant males at least. The Anglican church of Ireland took over the land taken from the Catholic church and its clergy was given the mission to convert the Irish. Land use, Irish deportation and proselytism are the three facets of the Plantation programme undertaken under James I^[3] and at the beginning of Charles I^[4]'s reign (1625-1629). In Ulster at least half the colonists are Scots from the Lowlands. The island counted at the time four ethnic-religious groups : Irish (Catholic), Old English (Catholic), Anglicans and Presbyterian Scots.

However this colonisation proved disappointing for the English. The number of colonists moving to Ireland remained low. In the 1630s, there may have been some 20,000 British males in Ulster ; this suggests a total of 80,000 Protestants, including women and children, which amounts to 7% of the population. Few Irish have converted to Protestantism as the Anglican preachers spoke English and not Gaelic. It remains that the Protestants are a majority in the valleys of the Fynn and the Foyle, as well as in the north of Armagh and the west of Tyrone. They form the nucleus of Ulster's Protestant community that went on growing over the centuries. The expropriations targeting the Irish, though not high in number – and the implantation of these (Anglican and Presbyterian) Protestant communities caused strong tensions, at once socio-economic, political and religious. They set off a cycle of rebellions lasting up till the end of the 17^th century and bringing about violent repressions : the number of Catholics on the island fell from 1.2 millions to 800,000 so that Protestant families reach between 10 and 20% of the population according to estimates.