Bits and pieces of Tyrone history provided to researchers by list subscribers to Ulster-L

Click TO Search This Site

ANTRIM-BELFAST:

BELFAST:  Englishman Richard Lovett's observations of his trip throughout Ireland was first published in 1888 by the Religious Tract Society.  Some of his comments:

"As in the case of Liverpool, Glasgow and other great ports, the growth of Belfast has been both recent and rapid.  The references to it in the early records are brief and slight; in fact, its history is said to begin about 1612, when Sir Arthur Chichester, ancestor of the present Donegal family, received from Charles I a charter for the colony from Devonshire which he had planted on the shores of the lough.  At the beginning of this century it numbered about 20,000 inhabitants, and at the last census considerably over 200,000!  The day seems not far distant when it will outstrip Dublin in population.  It is admirably situated for the purposes of a great shipping centre, standing on the River Lagan, at the head of the Belfast Lough.  Much of the older part of the town occupies ground only a few feet above the level of the lough; and in earlier days floods were frequent, and epidemics were far too common.  But improved drainage and attention to modern sanitary requirements ha!
ve greatly improved this state of affairs.  Like Dublin, Belfast is rich in suburban beauty.  In the eastern part of the town, and along the north shore of the lough the land slopes up from the water, reaching in the Cave Hill, which forms a very prominent object in the landscape, an elevation of over 1,100 feet.  In this direction are many of the splendid houses of the rich Belfast merchants; and not in this direction only but wherever around the city suitable sites exist, they are occupied by the men who have at once enriched themselves and built up the business prosperity of the capital of the north.  Belfast is clean and free from smoke; the streets are well laid out, and contain handsome municipal buildings, churches, colleges, shops and private houses.  The chief thoroughfares are Donegal Place, Castle Street, Donegal Street, High Street, and the most recent and finest of all, Royal Avenue.  In both public and private buildings Belfast can hold her own with her great c!
ommercial rivals in the United Kingdom.  Such buildings as the Custom House, the Town Hall, the new Post Office, the Belfast, the Ulster and the Northern Banks, and the Albert Memorial are an ornament to any city.  Handsome bridges cross the Lagan.  Religion and education are zealously cared for in the city.  The stranger cannot fail to be struck by the number and the excellence of the churches and colleges.  Carlisle Circus is adorned with two splendid buildings; St. Enoch's Church, the finest and most imposing building belong to the Presbyterians, and the Carlisle Memorial Church, a handsome Methodist Church, built by a wealthy merchant in commemoration of his son, who died young.  On every hand Presbyterian churches are to be met with.  The chief Protestant Episcopal buildings are St. George's Church in High Street, St. Ann's Church in Donegal Street, and Christ Church in College Square North.  Roman Catholicism is represented by St. Malachi's in Alfred Street, and St. Pa!
trick's in Donegal Street."

 

GENERAL HISTORY:

A chairde,

I'm not an expert on this period, though I've read a little on it. The
Druids were not a race of men, they were highpriests of the Pagan spiritual
cult that was practiced in Ireland prior to St. Patrick's arrival.

The Fomorians were one of the ancient peoples who came to Ireland in the
mists of time - perhaps five thousand years ago. I believe their name
indicates that they came from the sea. A controversial, though quite
interesting, anthropologist named Emmanuel Velikovsky made the case that
they were Phoenecians.

Others have theorized that another major race occupying Eire, the Tuatha De
Danaan, were of Greek origin.

The Firbolgs were the main rivals for supremacy of the Tuatha De Danaan, and
my understanding is that these were short statured people - who had very
rigid codes for nearly every activity. There is a story about one battle
that took place between the Firbolgs and the Tuatha De Danaan in which the
Firbolgs observed that the Tuatha DeDanaan had amassed an overwhelming force
against them. So, they sent messengers to tell the Tuatha that they refused
to enter battle unless the opposing sides were of an equal number. This
caused the Tuatha to have a council of war among themselves to make the
required adjustments. When they announced that they had arrived at the
required number, the Firbolgs sent another messenger. This time, he pointed
out that the Firbolgs' spears and arrows were of a superior quality to those
of the Tuatha, and that therefore battle would still not be possible since
it would not be "fair". So, the Tuatha asked how they might rectify their
inferiority of weapons, and the Firbolgs showed them how to make the
superior arms. The negotiations and arrangements leading up to the battle
lasted for over three months - after which the Tuatha defeated the Firbolgs.

The Milesians were Gaels, or Celts. They would be a branch of the Galatians
mentioned in St. Paul's Epistles. They apparently came to Ireland from Spain
several hundred years before the Christian era. These people overcame the
Firbolgs and the Tuatha to achieve supremacy in Eire, which - by they way -
was called "Scota" after the wife of Milesius.

In the ensuing centuries, a kingdom called Dal Riata was founded in the
Northeast, which was composed of the east coast of Ulster and the islands
reaching across to the northern part of Britain. The Dal Riata forces sought
conquest over the inhabitants of northern Britain, who were called Picts.
Imposing their rule, they were referred to across that Island as "Scots",
and the land became known as "Scotland" - this would have been in the 4th &
5th Christian centuries.

Those who remained on the original island of Scota were referred to as
"Irish" after "Ir" one of the sons of Milesius and Scota - as a menas to
differentiate them from the Scots of Scotland (northern Britain).

Siochain,
Ted

================

ULSTER IN GENERAL:

I have subscribed to these RootsWeb lists from the lower South West
of Western Australia, where a lot of people from those areas ended up.

There are more of course, but my genealogical files may be of interest
to you if you wish to track down names. It is at:
http://users.highway1.com.au/~gruagach/swfamily/surnames.htm

If anyone has any difficulty please get back to me, and perhaps while
you are there please take the opportunity to browse my site.

For myself, we are a mixed bag. Typically Australian.

My mother's people are Varcoes from Cornwall, married to Rowes and
Trebilcocks. Here in Australia they intermarried with McKenzies from
Killmailly, Scotland, and Nixons - also Michies from Aberdeen.

My father's people are Rawsons from Armagh, Ireland, although I
think originally from the West Yorkshire area. My surname Hardwick
is from my Pop who came out as an orphan from Somerset in 1914.
He was born in Chew Magna, 1893.

Apart from that my role is more the historian than genealogist. I do
hope we may be able to fill in some of the gaps, and understand the
periods of emigration better as a tool for finding where people came
from, and where they went.

Let's see how it goes.

Kind regards,

Gil

==============

Hello Don,
Thanks for the mail.
I will bear in mind your request and will of course be glad to pass anything
of interest on.
Thank you also for the link.

My regards
Robert Williams
www.ulsterancestry.com


From: "Don Kelly" <[email protected]
To: <[email protected]

Hi Robbie. Good luck with your career.

You don't know me, but I admin the Tyrone, Fermanagh and Ulster websites
for North Ireland, and also admin the North Ireland, Fermanagh, Tyrone
and Ulster mailing lists.

I will add a link to your site on my webpages so visitors can read your
updated webpages anytime they want. If you run across information that
doesn't really fit on your website, that yet is genealogically
applicable to any of my webpages, please feel free to contribute that
information by attachment to this address [email protected]

So I know it is you and not a virus mimicking you, please use the
applicable county or Province on the subject line.

I visit your site often and enjoy it every time. Take care of yourself
and don't get lost.

Don Kelly, NC, IGP
----- Original Message -----
From: "robbie williams" <[email protected]


 
 
  ________________________________________________________
 
 
 
 =================

PROVINCE OF ULSTER:  The Giant's Causeway, Co. Antrim, is a strange basalt
structure formed by the cooling of molten lava approximately 60 million
years ago.

A scattered necklace of thousands of drumlins - small hills of boulder clay,
dumped as the last great ice age melted 13,000 years ago, separate the nine
counties of the old province of Ulster - Armagh, Antrim, Cavan, Derry,
Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Monaghan and Tyrone - from the rest of the island
of Ireland.  A natural barrier, it runs in a swathe some 30 miles (48 km)
wide from the placid Irish Sea in the east to the great Atlantic rollers of
the west.  Great man-made earthworks, thrown up in the 1st century B.C.,
span the gaps between drumlins.  A third barrier, an international border,
splits off six of the counties (Antrim, Armagh, Derry/Londonderry, Down,
Fermanagh and Tyrone) to make Northern Ireland which comprises one-sixth of
the island and is home to 1.5 million people.

There have been people in Ulster since the Middle Stone Age, over 8000 years
ago.  They speared salmon, trapped boar and made camp in Ireland's first
recorded human settlement - a collection of round huts of woven sapling and
deer hide - at Mount Sandel on the banks of the River Bann in Co. Antrim.
The history of this culture, gathered together as the "Ulster Cycle," the
oldest vernacular epic in western European literature, is a heady mix of
men, women and gods, battles and lusts, spells and sorrows.  The land bridge
which once joined Ireland to Britain disappeared around 6000 B. C., and it
was not until the 4th millennium B. C. that the next wave of settlers came
in the form of Neolithic, New Stone Age farmers who risked the Irish Sea in
frail boats of lathe and hide, packed with pigs, cows and sheep, and made
landfall among stands of elm, always a sign of good soil, in Strangford
Lough.  These new immigrants felled the forests, grew cereals, fired pots,
built a distinctively northern style of stone cairn to their gods and buried
their dead under the dolmens which stand eternal in many an Ulster field.
By 2000 B.C., in the Bronze Age, contemporary with pyramids of Egypt's
Middle Kingdom and the great Minoan palaces of Knossos on Crete, Ulster's
tribes toiled to create the great stone circles of Down and Tyrone, while
merchant adventurers taught them to make bronze axeheads and  golden
ornaments.  By the coming of the Iron Age, the first Celts had arrived,
conquering say some, assimilating say others, those more ancient peoples,
the dark-skinned Fir Bolg, the red-haired Tuatha de Dannan, and the Cruithin
of Ulster with their warrior-clan structure and their Red Branch Knights.
These Gaels welcomed Patrick's Christian mission in the 5th century A. D.
and resisted the subsequent Viking raids on their monasteries in the 8th
century.

-- Excerpt, "Irish Counties, J. J. Lee

===============

This was sent to me awhile ago.  Hope it helps.  Regards, Coral  CUPPLES
Woon

Whitechurch Graveyard, Ballywalter
O.S. 12 Grid Ref. 622699
This old graveyard is on a tertiary road from Ballyboley to the north
end of
Ballywalter, half a mile out of the town. It is in the townland of
Whitechurch and parish of Ballywalter. The church is mentioned in the
Taxation of  1306  as the Alba Ecclesia, a translation ot its Irish
name,
and the Archaeological Survey of County Down dates it from the 13th
century.
There are fragments of 3 Norman grave-slabs which have been mounted on
the
outside of the N.E. end of the building. They are of the standard
pattern
and 2 have swords and one a pair of shears. Transepts were added about
the
15th century but that on the south has disappeared completely while that
on
the north is partly incorporated into modern grave enclosures. The
church
survived the Elizabethan and Cromwelliam wars and was still in use in
1657
though with only a thatched roof. It was finally abandoned after the new
church had been erected at Balligan in  1704  to serve the needs of
Ballywalter, Ballyhalbert and Innishargy parishes. The old site was then
used purely as a graveyard and when a new church was needed for the
rising
population of Ballywalter it was built in the town ( 1849 ).
Parish registers of Ballywalter date from the period of the new church;
baptisms from  1845 , marriages from  1850  and burials from  1844.
First
Ballywalter Presbyterian registers also exist; baptisms from  1824 ,
marriages from  1845. The second Presbyterian Registers for baptism date
from  1820  and marriage from  1845.
The oldest gravestones are in the church but unfortunately are broken
and
worn. One of these has a date  1663  and the Makie stone is probably
earlier. The oldest complete stone is dated  1667  (Faris). Most of the
older graves are to the south of the church both inside and beyond the
circular path. The Dunleath (Mulholland) enclosure is to the north of
the
church and most of the graves to this side date from the present
century.
The graveyard is well kept and has roses, honeysuckle and escallonia
bushes
scattered around. It is open from dawn to dusk throughout the year.

Lusk Here lieth the body of Grace Lusk alias Drinnan, wife of Capt.
Arthur
Lusk, who departed this life  15 Aug 1733  aged 33. Also Ann Lusk alias
Cupples who departed this life  03 Jul 1802  aged 77. Also Captain
Arthur
Lusk who circumnavigated the globe with Lord Anson, he departed this
life
09 Apr 1808  aged 94 years.

Antrim: Carrickfergus & Ballynure - Gravestone Inscriptions, Wills &
Biographical Notes, Old families of Carrickfergus & Ballynure
Cupples Erected by Arthur Cupples in memory of his father Art(hur
Cu)pples
who died
Cupples See Legg
----- Original Message -----
From: "Coral Woon" <[email protected]
To: <[email protected]



----- Original Message -----
From: <[email protected]
To: <[email protected]


 This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

 Classification: Query

 Message Board URL:

 http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/DYC.2ACE/444.5.1.1

 Message Board Post:

 Bob,

 Thanks for the input.

 Bob Lusk

===============

Sure Don, please go ahead.

They are a great bunch down this way, if ever you chance to drop by.

Kind regards,

Gil

At 06:07 PM 25/02/02 -0800, you wrote:
Hello Gil in OZ. With your permission I'll add your link to my Ulster
webpage. Find that link in the taglines.

Donald O'Collaugh Kelly
National Coordinator
Ireland Genealogy Projects, IGP
URL= http://irelandgenealogyprojects.rootsweb.com
===============

PROVINCE OF ULSTER IN GENERAL:

  The Giant's Causeway, Co. Antrim, is a strange basalt structure formed by the cooling of molten lava approximately 60 million years ago.

A scattered necklace of thousands of drumlins - small hills of boulder clay, dumped as the last great ice age melted 13,000 years ago, separate the nine counties of the old province of Ulster - Armagh, Antrim, Cavan, Derry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Monaghan and Tyrone - from the rest of the island of Ireland.  A natural barrier, it runs in a swathe some 30 miles (48 km) wide from the placid Irish Sea in the east to the great Atlantic rollers of the west.  Great man-made earthworks, thrown up in the 1st century B.C., span the gaps between drumlins.  A third barrier, an international border, splits off six of the counties (Antrim, Armagh, Derry/Londonderry, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone) to make Northern Ireland which comprises one-sixth of the island and is home to 1.5 million people. 

There have been people in Ulster since the Middle Stone Age, over 8000 years ago.  They speared salmon, trapped boar and made camp in Ireland's first recorded human settlement - a collection of round huts of woven sapling and deer hide - at Mount Sandel on the banks of the River Bann in Co. Antrim.  The history of this culture, gathered together as the "Ulster Cycle," the oldest vernacular epic in western European literature, is a heady mix of men, women and gods, battles and lusts, spells and sorrows.  The land bridge which once joined Ireland to Britain disappeared around 6000 B. C., and it was not until the 4th millennium B. C. that the next wave of settlers came in the form of Neolithic, New Stone Age farmers who risked the Irish Sea in frail boats of lathe and hide, packed with pigs, cows and sheep, and made landfall among stands of elm, always a sign of good soil, in Strangford Lough.  These new immigrants felled the forests, grew cereals, fired pots, built a distincti!
vely northern style of stone cairn to their gods and buried their dead under the dolmens which stand eternal in many an Ulster field.  By 2000 B.C., in the Bronze Age, contemporary with pyramids of Egypt's Middle Kingdom and the great Minoan palaces of Knossos on Crete, Ulster's tribes toiled to create the great stone circles of Down and Tyrone, while merchant adventurers taught them to make bronze axeheads and  golden ornaments.  By the coming of the Iron Age, the first Celts had arrived, conquering say some, assimilating say others, those more ancient peoples, the dark-skinned Fir Bolg, the red-haired Tuatha de Dannan, and the Cruithin of Ulster with their warrior-clan structure and their Red Branch Knights.  These Gaels welcomed Patrick's Christian mission in the 5th century A. D.  and resisted the subsequent Viking raids on their monasteries in the 8th century.

-- Excerpt, "Irish Counties, J. J. Lee


 

TYRONE:

Teena,

This may give you a lead.


I quote:
SCHOOL RECORDS: The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) has
released a "Guide to
 Educational Records". I recommend family history societies with members
researching in Ireland and especially
 in the Province of Ulster purchase a copy of this book (approx. £7.50),
a detailed guide to school registers
 available. Write to PRONI, 66 Balmoral Avenue, BELFAST BT9 6NY or
E-mail them to find the current price and
 postage. There is a book list on their web site:
http://proni.nics.gov.uk/index.htm The film numbers and school
 registers catalogued therein follow:

           List of School Registers by PRONI number .... 1701993   item
3
           Alphabetical Index to School Records .....   1701993   item 4
           SCH 1 - SCH 204 ................     1701993   item 5 - 7
           SCH 205 - SCH 524 ...............     1701994
           SCH 524 (contd.) - SCH 749 ..........    1701995
           SCH 750 - SCH 1079 .............     1701996
           SCH 1080 - SCH 1323 ..............     1736304
           SCH 1324 - SCH 1408 ..............     1736305

           e.g. Tirglassan School (co. Derry) is PRONI # 1090, which is
on reel #1736304, Eden School (co.
           Derry) is # 989, which is on reel #1701996, and Ardquin (co.
Down) is #119, on reel #1701993.

Below are some listings for Castlexxx Schools. None appear to be yours.
Could there be a name change?                            

Castlecaulfield TYR
                                                                   199
 
                                       Castlederg TYR
                                                                   1319
   Castlederg Edwards TYR
                              1124
                                       Castle Gardens, Newtownards (see
Newtownards)
                                                                   
   Castle Hill DOW
                              1277
                                       Castle Irvine FER
                                                                   985
   Castlereagh DOW
                              481
                                       Castlerobin ANT
                                                                   807
   Castleroddy TYR
                              1323
                                       Castleroe LDY
                                                                   838
   Castleshane MOG(Eire)
                              717/1
                                       Castletown TYR [formerly Fintona]
                                                                   1128
   Castlevennon DOW
                              231
                                       Castlewellan, Castlewellan No.1
DOW
                                                                   83
   Castlewellan, Castlewellan No.2 DOW 766

Castlewellan, St Malachy's DOW 685


This list is not all inclusive. Perhaps PRONI would have more
information. I don't know if there is a separate list for National
Schools.

Good luck.
Maureen H


==== CoTyroneIreland Mailing List ====
"When I searched for ancestors.... I found friends!"

FERMANAGH:

From; The Fermanagh Story by Peadar Livingstone
Pages 65 & 66

1  Three different kinds of landowners;
    a.  English & Scottish "Undertakers"
    b.  Servitors;  British army  men who had served in Ireland.
    c.  Native Irish  "Undertakers.

The native Irish were restricted to the baronies of Tirkennedy and Clanawley,  The Servitors also gotlands in these baronies.

Estates were generally of three sizes;
2,000 acres    only 3 were granted
1,500 acres     nine of these were granted
1,000 acres,   21 of these wer granted

various small parcels were granted to the native Irish.
Maguires, 5000 acres
Flanagans, 300
Rooneys, 240
McDonnells, 220
McCabes, 130
Corrigans, 120
Cassidys, 100
O;Husseys, 60
Leonards, 50
Muldoons, 50

===============

SERVITORS;
1.  Sir John Davys (Davis)
2.  Samuel Harrison
3.  Peter Mostin (Mostyn)

IRISH NATIVES RECEIVING LAND;
1. Cormac O'Cassidy                    100 acres
2.  Donell Dean Maguire & James McDonough Maguire.     300 acres
3.  Rorie McAdegany Maguire, Owen McCoconaght Maguire, Donnell Oge O'Muldoon.     150 acres
4.  Donough Oge Maguire,  100
5.  Felim Oge Maguire,  190
6.  Cahell McGilleduffe Maguire, 100
7.  Redmond McGillpatrick Maguire, 100
8.  Shane McHugh, 350 acrea
9.  Donell McCormock, 50
10.  Coconaght McHugh, 50
11. Donough Oge McHugh, 50
12. Donough Oge McDonaghy Maguire, 145
13. Felim McAwly, 50
14. Bryan Oge Maguire, 145
15. Donough McRorie (Maguire), 50
16. Rorie Maguire, 100
17. Thomas James McDun Maguire,Bryan McJames McDun Maguire and Hugh McJames McDun Maguire, 120 acres
18. Tirlogh Moyle Maguire, 300
19. Bryan McThomas Maguire, 220
20. Patrick McDonell, 120
21. Shane McEnabb ( of McCabe), 130
22. Patrick McHugh Maguire, 140
23. Bryan O'Corcoran, 120
24. Edmund McBryan McShane, 140
25. Felim Duffe McBrien, 100
26. Cormock McDonell, 100
27. Connor McTirlagh (McDonell), 100
28. Bryan McMulrony (McDonell), 240
29. Jophn Maguire, 140
30. Donell Groome McArte, 150
31. Hugh O'Flanagan, 192
32. Oghy O'Hossy, 60
33. Cormac Oge McHugh, 180
34. Shane McDevett( of McDavitt), 60
35. Shane McDonell Ballagh, Brian O'Skanlan, 120
36. Shane Evarr Maguire, 96
37. Cormock McBryan Maguire, 96
38. Cormock McCollo Maguire, 144
39.Cnogher Glasse Maguire, 48
40. Henry McElynan, 48
41. Felim McElynan, 48
42. Meloghlin Oge McCorr, 50
43. Connell McWorrin, 100
44.Moriertagh (Mortogh) O'Flanegan, 100
45. Hugh Boy Maguire, 96
46. Patrick McHugh, 50
47. Rorie McDonough Maguire, Pat Ballagh Maguire, 190
48. Tirlagh Mergagh Maguire,Felim Duffe MsRorie Maguire, 100
49. Garreit Maguire, JOhn Maguire,60 acres

519
5.  Precinct of Coole and Tircannada, commensurate with Magherastephana and Tirkennedy

SERVITORS;
1.  Sir Henry Folliott
2.  Roger Atkinson
3.  William Cole
4.  Paul Goore ( or Gore)

IRISH NATIVES RECEIVING LAND
1.  Con McShane O'Neale, 1,500 acres
2.  Bryan Maguire, 2,000 acres
3.  Tirlagh Maguire, 500
4.  John Maguire, 120
5. Richard Maguire, 120

 

ALL IRELAND:

Northern Aid - NORAID on line:

http://www.inac.org/roadtopeace/gfa.html

The Good Friday Agreement:

http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/users/ireland/today/good_friday/main.html

REMARKS BY THE PRIME MINISTER, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE TONY BLAIR MP,
ON BEHALF OF THE UK AND IRISH GOVERNMENTS AT A PRESS CONFERENCE WITH
THE TAOISEACH, BERTIE AHERN TD, HILLSBOROUGH CASTLE, CO DOWN
1 APRIL 1999

http://www.irlgov.ie/iveagh/angloirish/remarks.htm

Thanks to Out There News:

The Long Good Friday
by JOHN WEST and PAUL EEDLE

The moment that all Northern Ireland had been waiting for years to hear
finally arrived 17 hours after the Downing Street-imposed Good Friday 1998
deadline when the chair of the Stormont talks, US senator George Mitchell,
announced that all parties had reached an agreement on the fundamental
issues: devolution of power to a Northern Ireland Assembly, a ministerial
executive to run the province, and new cross-border bodies. It had taken a
dramatic thirteenth-hour phone call to the parties ensconced inside Stormont
trying to forge a deal from US President Bill Clinton.

In order to get an agreement at all, it had been written in deliberately
vague language. Vital issues, such as the decommissioning of terrorist
weapons, had effectively been fudged in the hope that they'd be easier to
deal with in the future.

On May 22 1998, a referendum on the Good Friday Agreement resulted in 71 per
cent of Northern Ireland's electorate voting to back the agreement at the
polling stations. South of the border, in the Irish republic, a massive 94
per cent of voters backed the deal.

The ballot box not the bullet.

On June 25, elections for the 108-seat Northern Ireland assembly took place,
the beginning of a process described by the secretary of state for Northern
Ireland, Mo Mowlam, as "a watershed in the history of Northern Ireland." The
results were announced two days later with pro-agreement parties holding the
balance of power. David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists, became
elected first minister, with Seamus Mallon, of the nationalist SDLP,
installed in the post of deputy first minister by the new Assembly's
members.

Across the "peace line".

The unionists.

May Blood is a unionist and has been a full-time community worker in the
Greater Shankhill area for the last ten years. She was also a founder member
of the Northern Ireland women's coalition.

"When the agreement was signed the community was euphoric because leading up
to the agreement there was a lot of pessimism about. People didn't really
think it was going to happen. That whole week everybody was on tenterhooks,
and when they came out on the Friday morning and said the agreement had been
got, we just couldn't believe it. The whole feeling in the community was
just was one of thankfulness. It was almost like a release of emotions
because we were really expecting the worst and some good came out of it.

"It was almost like party time. I can remember the day of the referendum. It
was a beautiful day in Belfast, it was a Saturday, and the pubs and clubs
were filled and people were clapping each other on the back, you know. It
really was a real sense of party time: we've got this agreement, we can work
it together, the majority of people want it, and let's go for it. At that
stage it was like party time, that's the simplest way to explain it.

"Leading up to the referendum we had doom and gloom, and many people said,
'Oh, it will not get through' and the 'No' votes will win. There was quite a
bit of atmosphere about the referendum because there was a lot hype going
on. At one stage, for instance, we had the prime minister over here writing
this big note on the wall to people that promised decommissioning would take
place and all that.

"People thought at that time, both north and south, because the southern
people had voted overwhelmingly in favour of it, people then thought, 'Well
we've cracked it now'. And, you know, that was a feeling that lasted for a
good number of months.

"I campaigned for a 'Yes' vote during the referendum campaign, but on the
opposite side I came across a lot of unionist people who were very, very
worried, particularly about the early release of prisoners. That was a
major, major problem. And the other one was decommissioning of arms."

The nationalists.

Robbie McVeigh is a community economic researcher at the West Belfast
Economic Forum. He has worked for years on anti-sectarian and anti-racist
issues. He is also a presenter on Triple FM, a local west Belfast community
radio station.

"There was no sense of victory like you might have had elsewhere in similar
situations. But people did make compromises on the basis that they were a
way forward to peace and a new beginning. I think that, to put it very
simply, most nationalists were not very happy with the agreement but they
were happy that the agreement was made.

"Everything in the agreement was about compromise, and there was no question
that for a lot of nationalists in general, and I would say republicans in
particular, an awful lot of it was pretty hard to swallow. A lot was given
up, and I suppose symbolically the most powerful bit of that was the
recognition of the legitimacy of the Northern Ireland state, which hadn't
ever been recognised by nationalists or republicans

"I think there was a lot of euphoria amongst the talks participants because
they hadn't slept for three days and right up to the end of it looked as if
there would be no deal at all. My feeling was that the response on the
ground, both from unionists and nationalists, was actually much more
measured. There was already an awareness of some of the [coming] tensions -
particularly within unionism - in the run up to the signing of the
agreement, and there were, you know, a lot of hurdles to actually overcome
in terms of getting it through the elections and so on, and getting the
support of a majority of people in Northern Ireland.

"If you look at the situation in South Africa, when democratisation finally
happened there, there was a real sense of victory and a new beginning based
on a sense of leaving something behind. I think ours was much more of a
sense of compromise and everybody being unhappy with it. Now that was both a
good thing and a bad thing."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Out There News is a news agency born on the Net. It pioneers a non-linear
journalism in which people create their own experience of the news rather
than passively receiving information. The audience become journalists
themselves, meeting people, discovering facts and absorbing atmosphere to
form their own understanding of the issues.

John West, Internet Journalist of the Year in the 1999 Online Journalism
Awards, has worked in Jordan, Egypt, Sudan, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza
Strip and Britain.

During six years with Reuters, John covered the first year of the
Israeli-PLO peace accords, the biggest earthquake in Egypt's modern history,
and the guerrilla war in southern Sudan.

John spent 1996-97 creating a web presence for Britain's Independent
Television News (www.itn.co.uk) as its first Online Editor.

Paul Eedle is a journalist and media executive who has worked in Europe, the
Middle East, Asia and America.

During 17 years with Reuters, Paul reported the Israeli invasion of Lebanon
in 1982 and China's democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989. He
launched a Japanese-language financial news service in Tokyo in 1991 and a
financial television service in New York in 1995.

Paul left Reuters in 1995 and formed Out There News with John in 1996.

===========

Sorry folks, There was no vote  in Northern Ireland in 1922, the UK Government of Ireland Act (1920) partitioned the island giving both north & south Home Rule (seperate Parliaments in Dublin & Belfast), without a vote by the six northern counties in Ulster, even though Tyrone & Fermanagh had Catholic majorities.  Because no Irish Nationalists were consulted over the boundaries this British cabinet boundary line favoured the Protestant ascendancy (Unionist Party).  The IRA war for indepence and an Irish Republic continued in Ireland until the truce of until 11 July 1921.

Interestingly the British cabinet  had originally proposed the whole of Ulster's nine counties for exclusion; though a minority in cabinet preferred local plebiscites (in the fashion established by US President Woodrow Wilson to secure a post-war Europe based on self-determination),  If all nine counties had been excluded this would have meant an Ulster almost equally divided between Protestant and Catholics, and hence less able to be controlled by the Unionist's.  The Unionists with their allies in the cabinet, such as Sir Edward Carson (founder of the Ulster Union Party) and Lord Curzon insisted and got the six north-eastern counties.  It was a casual way to construct a border and one which could hardly be expected to last without a protest.  It left us with today's bloody fighting between the same unreasonable groups of protagonists, the British governments of the past thirty years have inherited the mess left by the PM Lloyd George and the Unionist blow-hard Sir Edward C!
arson.  Lloyd George tricked the Irish delegation by agreeing that the proposed division of Ireland by offering a bounday commission which was strongly hinted, would prune nationalist Tyrone, Fermanagh, south Armagh and Derry, leading to an unviable statelet and eventual re-unification. At the same time the PM Lloyd George secretly guaranteed to Carson and the Ulster unionists that the border would remain unchanged.

If a vote was taken today,  Ulster would shrink, many of the major cities already have Catholic majorities, the power hungry Unionists know there days of power will soon be over that is why they are resisting change to any existing power structures that have ensured Catholics are second class citizens in Ulster.

Slainte,

Vincent Le Plastrier
Forest Lake, Brisbane, Australia


"Et semel emissum, volat irrevocabile verbum" - Horace 65 BC - 8 BC

["Once released, a word flies and can't be called back"]


----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Kelly" <[email protected]
To: <[email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2002 3:54 AM
Subject: Re: [TIP] Ireland Declares Independence


 Greetings to all:
 
 Why's this and Why's that are as convoluted as everything else in
 Ireland history.
 
 If one word best points the path to independence, it is "VOTE".
 
 Eighty years ago six counties voted to remain aligned with England.
 
 It was democracy in action. They had the chance to be independent, but
 opted to remain aligned with England. At least everyone had a
 choice.....if not fully free.
 
 Now year by year people in North Ireland who want to be free are growing
 in numbers, and one day their numbers will be large enough to win the
 vote.
 
 That is the trend, but many other scenarios can happen, and probably
 will. It won't be easy.
 
 Don Kelly
 
 ----- Original Message -----
 From: "linda menikos" <[email protected]
 To: <[email protected]
 Sent: Monday, December 23, 2002 2:45 AM
 Subject: Re: [TIP] Ireland Declares Independence
 
 
  Hi Don,
 
  Your first sentence is probably the key.  Will it happen?  What is
 keeping
  it from happening?  I am not very knowledgeable in this.
 
  Linda
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Don Kelly" <[email protected]
  To: <[email protected]
  Sent: Sunday, December 22, 2002 11:56 AM
  Subject: Re: [TIP] Ireland Declares Independence
 
 
   Perhaps the Irish Nation will best celebrate when they become one
 united
   country again.
 
   That would IMHO be cause for real flag waving, balloon floating,
 parades
   marching with fireworks displays, all over Ireland.
 
   The Irish may well celebrate a win by their football team in
   international competition to a greater extent than their
 Independence
   Day.
 
   I know I feel pride when they win.
 
   I think independence started in 1922, but then happenings in 1948
 gave
   reason to celebrate, so I don't which of those two years is most
   important to the nation.
 
   Not to celebrate bigtime does seem rather curious, but I guess there
 are
   reasons for that.
 
   Merry Christmas All
 
   Don Kelly
   ----- Original Message -----
   From: "Gerard Cooney" <[email protected]
   To: <[email protected]
   Sent: Sunday, December 22, 2002 3:03 AM
   Subject: Re: [TIP] Ireland Declares Independence
 
 
    Irelands declaration of independence is not commemorated with a
   national
    holiday or any other event.  It passes mainly unnoticed for a
 variety
   of
    good reasons, however, only us Irish could struggle for hundreds
 of
   years
    for independence and then promptly ignore it.
    .
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Al and Judy" <[email protected]
    To: <[email protected]
    Sent: Sunday, December 22, 2002 1:25 AM
    Subject: Re: [TIP] Ireland Declares Independence
  
  
     Please forgive my fathomless ignorance, but does Ireland
 celebrate
   its
     Independence Day. and if so, how?  Is it a national holiday in
   Ireland?
     ----- Original Message -----
     From: <[email protected]
     To: <[email protected]
     Sent: Saturday, December 21, 2002 11:49 AM
     Subject: [TIP] Ireland Declares Independence
   
   
      On this date, 12/ 21 in 1948, Ireland declared it's
 Independence
   !!
    
      Mike Harkins
    
    
    ==================

Civil Rights in Northern Ireland - 1968 to 1994

In 1968 the tensions between the unionist and nationalist communities in
Northern Ireland resurfaced on the streets with the formation of the Civil
Rights Movement. Catholics were no longer prepared to accept their role as
second class citizens.

At this time in Northern Ireland Catholics made up roughly 35% of the
population and were seen as less important than Protestants. Many Catholic
families were forced to live in the same house along with two or more other
families as all the council houses would have gone to Protestant families
The same also applied when companies were looking for employees. Protestants
had the best jobs and made sure that other Protestants were promoted.
Eventually the Catholics had had enough and decided it was time for change.
The Catholics decided to protest in peaceful marches, appealing for equal
Human Rights.

The Prime Minister at the time, Captain O'Neill, recognising the need for
change, suggested instituting a development Corporation for Derry and
improving the local Government over a period of three years. This was seen
as too little, too late.

On 4th January while the protesters were marching between Belfast and Derry,
they were attacked by supporters of Rev. Ian Paisley. The Protestant mob
were throwing stones and wielding clubs. The R.U.C. were filmed by news
crews, making little attempt to arrest the attackers. Instead they arrested
about 80 marchers, who they were supposed to be protecting. Paisley's
description of the Civil Rights organisation was "a front movement for the
destruction of Northern Ireland" Later that night the Police went into the
Bogside in Derry and according to the Cameron report they were guilty of
"misconduct, assault and battery, malicious damage to property and the use
of provocative and sectarian slogans." This was yet another attempt to crush
Catholic opposition to the status quo.

The situation did not improve, the Protestants were still fighting the
Catholics and the Police were doing nothing to protect them. The Police at
this time were very much a Protestant force, upholding a Protestant law, and
banned the Catholics from marching.

Captain O'Neill, seeking to strengthen his position against the more
hard-line unionists called a general election. This plan back-fired and O'
Neill had to resign to be replaced by another upper class Orangeman, Major
James Chichester Clark. Things went from bad to worse with Catholics
rioting. In August the B special reserves of the R.U.C joined with
Protestants opposing Catholic rioters, who had been throwing stones and
petrol bombs and started firing sub-machine guns and tear gas at them. In
two nights, six people were killed and 300 houses burned. On 14th August
British troops had to be sent in to preserve law and order.

This was an important time in the history of Ireland as it was the time when
the Irish Republican Army was reformed. The Provisional IRA was set up to
protect the Catholics from the Protestants. The IRA's aims were for a united
Ireland, which they were determined to pursue with policies using an armed
struggle and through the ballot box with their political wing Sinn Fein. It
wasn't hard for the IRA to take control of the Catholic areas of Derry and
Belfast. Apart from any element of intimidation the IRA were at first the
only leadership the people had. The Civil Rights Movement had effectively
ceased to be and their role had been taken over by the Provisional IRA.

Civil unrest continued. In February 1971 the IRA killed their first British
soldier. With the violence continuing the Government introduced internment
without trial in August of this year. This further inflamed passions.

In January 30th 1972 the British Army opened fire, on the streets of Derry,
and killed 13 civilians. This was known as 'Bloody Sunday.' During this
time, prisoners who had been interned because of the troubles were trying to
get the status of Political Prisoner. They thought that they were different
from regular criminals as they were prisoners of war and would rather smear
the walls of their cells with their excrement then accept the prison
authorities' refusal of political status.

In March 1972 the British Government suspended the Northern Ireland
parliament and imposed direct rule from Westminster because of the
increasing lack of confidence of the Nationalist minority. They introduced
many reforms including one man one vote. On 9th December 1973 a new
Protestant leader, Brian Faulkner formed a partnership with a new
non-violent nationalist grouping the SDLP at Sunningdale in Surrey. They
agreed that a new type of executive should be set up in which power would be
shared, as far as possible between representatives of the two communities in
a joint Government. They also agreed that a Council of Ireland should be set
up to encourage cooperation between the two parts of Ireland. This agreement
was not accepted by Protestants. Their opposition culminated in the Ulster
workers strike of May 1974 as a result of which the agreement was scraped.

Violence continued with atrocities committed by both sides. One of the
notable events was the murder of Lord Louis Mountbatten in a booby trap bomb
at his holiday home on the Irish border.

In 1976 a woman named Betty Williams witnessed an IRA terrorist being shot
by British troops while fleeing in a car. The car went out of control and
hit several people, killing three children. In a quest for peace she founded
the Community for Peace People with Mairéad Corrigan, a relative of one of
the dead children. The group organised many large rallies calling on the
paramilitaries to stop their violence. Despite initial hopes the movement
failed. Betty Williams and Mairéad Corrigan were awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize for their efforts.

In 1981 the continuing struggle for political status was heightened with
Republican prisoners going on hunger strikes. The British Government refused
to give in and 10 people starved themselves to death, most notably Bobby
Sands. http://larkspirit.com/hungerstrikes/

In 1984 the British Government had talks with the Southern Irish Government
to try and resolve the dead lock but were unable to reach an agreement. That
year the IRA's most audacious attack ever was on the Brighton Hotel during
the Tory Party conference. They came very close to killing the Prime
Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and members of the cabinet.

IRA struggle continued in Northern Ireland and on the British mainland with
bomb outrages and attacks on security forces.

In the early 90's Unionist frustration lead to an outbreak of reprisal
atrocities. In November 1992 three innocent Catholics were shot dead by
Protestant extremists in a betting shop in Belfast, as a so called reprisal
for an IRA bomb blast in Coleraine. The tit for tat murders continued and in
1993 four Catholics were murdered in Castlerock, ten Protestants were killed
in a Shankhill chip shop and twelve Catholics were killed on their way to
work in Greysteel. These atrocities shocked even the war weary people of
Ireland and there was a growing acceptance that something, anything had to
be done. The British and Irish Governments agreed to what became known as
The Downing Street Declaration in December 1993. The most ground breaking
element of this was that the British Government stated that they had no wish
to remain in Northern Ireland unless the majority of its citizens wished
them to be. The pressure on the IRA from the British, Irish and US
Governments and all the people of Ireland resulted in their cease-fire of
August 1994.

Between 1968 and 1994 both groups have tried numerous attempts to fulfil
their aims, none of which were particularly successful. The Nationalists
initially tried peaceful demonstrations such as the Civil Rights marches but
these were broken up by the Protestant forces of Law and Order. Because of
attacks on their communities they turned again to the IRA. as they felt they
were denied representation through the ballot box. The IRA waged a sustained
campaign of violence and destruction in Northern Ireland and the mainland in
the hope that the British Government would lose interest in Northern
Ireland. They engaged in secret peace talks at various times during the
period but were unwilling to surrender and give up their weapons.

The Protestants tried everything they could think of to preserve the links
with the United Kingdom including the formation of their own Paramilitary
organisations to combat the IRA. The hard-line unionists, with their motto
of "No Surrender," led by Rev. Ian Paisley, viewed all attempts at peace
talks as surrender and were a major, but generally peaceful, obstacle to any
movement towards any settlement before 1994. Their main tactic was to say no
to everything. The mainstream unionists were slightly more flexible but were
restrained by their links to the Orange Order and the danger of losing
public support to Paisley who played on peoples fears of a "sell out". The
loyalist paramilitaries were prepared to match any IRA atrocity with one of
their own to ensure the IRA were not seen as winning and to discourage any
British "sell out."

The British Government initially tried to defeat the IRA. Eventually they
realised they could not do this and then attempted to provide the means for
the people of Northern Ireland to sort out the problems between themselves.

After 26 years of the troubles all sides were war weary and realised that no
one could win and no one could lose the war. The only option was compromise
on all sides.

==============================
"The Story of the Irish Race", by Seumas MacManus, from 1921, 35th  printing in 1981.

Page 405
Chapter XLVII

"The Ulster Plantation"

Within a decade after the "Flight if the Earls" came the Ulster Plantation - a scheme of fatal and far reaching consequence for the Island ever since.

   It was the Sixth James of Scotland who, after he became James  I of England, perpetrated this crime. The land-greedy and gain-greedy among his Scotic fellow countryment, and among the English, were the instigators.  Upon Ireland the covetous eyes of such people were ever turned.  The flight of the Earls proved a welcome excuse for the wholesale robbing of the Clans.  It was a very simple matter to find that all the Northern Chiefs had been conspiring to rebel - against  England.  Hence,  they were "traitors" to England!  And naturally their estates were forfeit and for distribution among James's hungry followers.

  That the Clan-Lands did not then, or ever at any time, belong to the Chieftain, but to the whole Clan community, was a matter of no consequence.  According to English law and custom it should belong to the people's lords ( chiefs).  And if "civilised" law did not obtain in Ireland, it must be imposed wheresoever British profit could be reaped from such imposition.

The English Lord Lieutenant, Sir Arthur Chichester, and the Attorney General, Sir John Davis, were the instruments, under James, for giving effect to the great Plantation.  The lands of the six counties of Donegal, Derry ( then called Coleraine), Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan and Armaggh - four million acres - were confiscated. ( The lands of the three remaining counties, Antrim, Down and Monaghan were bestowed upon Britons at other times). . The true owners, the natives, were driven like wild fowl or beasts, from the rich and fertile valleys of Ulster, which had been theirs from time immemorial, to the bogs and the moors and the barren crags - where it was hoped that they might starve and perish.

   English and Scotch Undertakers (( as they were called), and Servitors of teh Crown, scrambled for the fertile lands which were given to them in parcels of 1 thousand, 1,500 and 2,00- acres.  The County of Coleraine (Derry) was divided up among the London trade Guilds, the drapers, fishmongers, vintners, haberdashers, etc., who had financed the Plantation scheme.  The Church termon lands were bestowed upon the Protestant bishops.  And thus a new nation was planted upon the fair face of Ireland's
proudest quarter.

  The new nation was meant to be the permanent nation there.  The written conditions upon which the new people got the lands specifically bound them to repress and abhor  the Irish natives - conditions which through hundreds of years since the new people have faithfully endeavoured to carry out.  They were bound never to alien the lands to Irish, to admit no Irish customs,  not to intermarry with the Irishs, nor to permit any Irish other the menials to exist on or near their land.  And they were bound to build castles and bawns, and keep many armed British retainers - thus constituting a permanent British garrison which would help to tame if not exterminate the Irish race.  Sir John Davies, the Scotic king's very faithful servants, assures us that his master did tame the whole race.  In his book, " A Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland  was never Subdued and Brought under Obedience to the Crowne of England until the Beginning of His Majesty's Happie Reign." he says, "T!
he multitude having been brayed as it were in mortar with sword, pestilence and famine, altogether became admirers of the Crowne of England."


And when they were made true admirers of the Crowne of England it was that their fertile possessions were given to the stranger, and they sent to co-habit with the snipe and the badger among the rocks and heather,  And the faithful servant, Sir John, a pious
Puritan rogue who stained his powers to rob and wrong the natives even far beyond the sweeping robbery powers which the "law" provided to his hand- this saint, in the traditional British fashion, tells us;  "This transplanting of the natives is made by his Majestie like a father, rather than a lord or monarch.

" So, as his Majestie doth in this, imitate the skilful husbandman who doth remove his fruit trees, not on purpose to extirpate and destroy, but the rather that they may bring forth better and sweeter fruit!". And when the starving one, from his perch among the rocks, glanced over the smiling valleys from which James had transplanted him for his own betterment, it is easy to conceive the depth of feeling with which he appreciated that kind father's solicitude.

 The character of the Planters who were given the lands of the hunted owned is recorded for us by the son of one of them, and also by a later one of their own descendents.  Reid, in his "History of the Irish Presbyterians" says;  "Among those whom divine Providence did send to Ireland ...the most part were such as either poverty or scandalous lives had forced hother".

And Stewart, the son of a Presbyterian minister who was one of the Planters, writes:  "From Scotland came many, and from England not a few, yet all of them generally the scum of both nations, who from debt, or breaking, or fleeing justice, or seeking shelter, came hither hoping to be without fear of man's justice."

Sore indeed was the lot of the poor Irish in the woods, and mountains and moors.  Thousands of them perished of starvation.  Other,  many thousands sailed away under leaders to enlist in Continental armies.  To far Sweden alone went no less the six thousand swordsmen.  But the lot of those who lived and remained was sorer far more than those who went either to  exile or to
death.. 

Texts taken from:
Hill's Plantation of Ireland
Sir John Davies' Irish Tracts
MacNevin's Ulster Plantation

 

PLANTATION PERIOD:

PROVINCE OF ULSTER:  The Giant's Causeway, Co. Antrim, is a strange basalt structure formed by the cooling of molten lava approximately 60 million years ago.

A scattered necklace of thousands of drumlins - small hills of boulder clay, dumped as the last great ice age melted 13,000 years ago, separate the nine counties of the old province of Ulster - Armagh, Antrim, Cavan, Derry, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Monaghan and Tyrone - from the rest of the island of Ireland.  A natural barrier, it runs in a swathe some 30 miles (48 km) wide from the placid Irish Sea in the east to the great Atlantic rollers of the west.  Great man-made earthworks, thrown up in the 1st century B.C., span the gaps between drumlins.  A third barrier, an international border, splits off six of the counties (Antrim, Armagh, Derry/Londonderry, Down, Fermanagh and Tyrone) to make Northern Ireland which comprises one-sixth of the island and is home to 1.5 million people. 

There have been people in Ulster since the Middle Stone Age, over 8000 years ago.  They speared salmon, trapped boar and made camp in Ireland's first recorded human settlement - a collection of round huts of woven sapling and deer hide - at Mount Sandel on the banks of the River Bann in Co. Antrim.  The history of this culture, gathered together as the "Ulster Cycle," the oldest vernacular epic in western European literature, is a heady mix of men, women and gods, battles and lusts, spells and sorrows.  The land bridge which once joined Ireland to Britain disappeared around 6000 B. C., and it was not until the 4th millennium B. C. that the next wave of settlers came in the form of Neolithic, New Stone Age farmers who risked the Irish Sea in frail boats of lathe and hide, packed with pigs, cows and sheep, and made landfall among stands of elm, always a sign of good soil, in Strangford Lough.  These new immigrants felled the forests, grew cereals, fired pots, built a distincti!
vely northern style of stone cairn to their gods and buried their dead under the dolmens which stand eternal in many an Ulster field.  By 2000 B.C., in the Bronze Age, contemporary with pyramids of Egypt's Middle Kingdom and the great Minoan palaces of Knossos on Crete, Ulster's tribes toiled to create the great stone circles of Down and Tyrone, while merchant adventurers taught them to make bronze axeheads and  golden ornaments.  By the coming of the Iron Age, the first Celts had arrived, conquering say some, assimilating say others, those more ancient peoples, the dark-skinned Fir Bolg, the red-haired Tuatha de Dannan, and the Cruithin of Ulster with their warrior-clan structure and their Red Branch Knights.  These Gaels welcomed Patrick's Christian mission in the 5th century A. D.  and resisted the subsequent Viking raids on their monasteries in the 8th century.

-- Excerpt, "Irish Counties, J. J. Lee


============

On Sun, 24 Feb 2002 [email protected] wrote:

 Hi Listers Can anyone please tell me the true reason for the Ulster
 Plantation? I have been given several explanations which include:

1. The Jacobite rebellion (about which I know nothing)
    A red herring.

2. The Border Reivers of Scotland/England, were transported to Ulster by
King James I of England, who could not otherwise control or supress their
murderous, thieving forays.
    They were a rough bunch, and it was certainly convenient to send some
    over to Ulster, but this was not a basic reason.

3. English and Scottish Families, LOYAL TO THE CROWN, were 'planted' on
confiscated land in Ulster, to thereby suppress the Irish uprising by
(somehow) lowering their birthrate.
    Starts out on track and goes most wonderfully awry!

The English had, since Norman times, treated Ireland as a colony to be
governed and pacified, rather than as a part of their Kingdom. After James
I & VI (1st of England, 6th of Scotland) came to the English throne, the
King of England was also King of Scotland. He therefore had sources of
willing settlers (willing because they would be given land) in Scotland as
well as in England, to go settle in Ireland, mainly in Ulster.

The Irish history, laws, everything, were so different from those of
England, even in pre-reformation times when their religions were still
nominally the same, that neither ever seems to have understood or at all
appreciated the other (and maybe that's still true!). The result was that
"pacification"  of Ireland had failed and one way to try to achieve this
was to settle loyal families on the land, who would provide stability and
a source of soldiery too.


 The third reason is questioned, mainly because the majority of those
 Families, which went over to Ireland, seem to have been Border Reivers,
 who were NOT loyal to the throne of England, as suggested, but to the
 throne of Scotland. The rest is also a little hazy.

Not so sure about a majority here. For example, I have three lines from
Ulster plantationers, not a one from the Borders. Many came from Scotland
far from the borders, and from England far south of the borders. Also, it
has always seemed to me that the reivers were loyal to themselves and gave
and expected little help to or from respective monarchs, who were a long
way away. The "Wardens of the Marches" who had the job of maintaining
order had one tough job. An interesting book is "The Administration of the
Scottish Frontier 1513/1603" by Thomas Rae Edinburgh Univ. Press 1966.

Crawford.