The
History of Ulster From the Earliest Times to
the Present Day by Ramsay Colles (1919)
TO THE MEMORY OF
THREE IRISH HISTORIANS
WHOM IT WAS MY PRIVILEGE TO
'ENTER ON MY LIST OF FRIENDS'
WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
PATRICK WESTON JOYCE
JOHN T. GILBERT
WISHING THAT WHAT I WRITE
MAY BE READ IN [THEIR] LIGHT'
God's Frontiersmen: The Scots-Irish Epic A landmark TV mini-series first aired nationally in 1988 on Channel
Four. This Docu-Drama tells the story of the Ulster-Scots, the
Presbyterian pioneers from Scotland that settled the dangerous frontiers
of Ulster, and then later many of whom journeyed to the wild frontiers
of colonial America to help shape a new nation.
No apology is required for
producing a history of Ulster planned on a scale sufficiently liberal to
allow of a thorough treatment of the subject. The Province's magnificent
record and the greatness of her achievements in so many spheres of
activity have long clamoured for such a work; and it is in answer to the
call that the present History of Ulster is now published.
The work was begun and was
far advanced towards completion before the war. After the outbreak of
hostilities, the issue was necessarily postponed and preparation for it
interrupted. Just as this long period of enforced delay was drawing to a
close, the gifted author's death occurred. It is matter for deep regret
that he should have been deprived of the legitimate satisfaction of seeing
the publication of the work which he had undertaken with enthusiasm and to
which he had devoted years of zealous labour. It has been left to another
pen than his to record, as a fitting close to her story, the honourable
part which, true to her traditions, Ulster has played in the momentous
struggle for the liberty of, the world.
Sketch of the History of the Scottish Population of Ulster by
John Harrison (1888)
PREFACE
These sketches of the history of the Scottish
settlers in Ulster were published in the columns of the 'Scotsman'
during this spring. They have been recast, and are now published in a
permanent form, as I think they may interest some who care to examine
the Irish question for themselves. Their English and Scottish origin
seems to me to give to the men of Ulster an inalienable right to
protest, as far as they are concerned, against the policy of Separation
from Great Britain to which the Irish, —with the genius for nicknames
which they possess —at present give the name of Home Rule.
My thanks are due to many friends in Ulster and at
home for kind assistance; and more especially to Professor Masson for
allowing me to have access to those sheets of the ninth volume of the '
Privy Council Records of Scotland,' now in the press, which bear on the
Scottish share in the settlement of 1610.
J. H.
7 Greknhill Place, Edinburgh,
16th October 1998.
CONTENTS
Chapter I - The Scot gains a
footing in County Down Chapter II - The Scot settles North
Down and County Antrim Chapter III - The Great Plantation
in Ulster Chapter IV -
The Scot brings with him his Scottish Church Chapter V -
The Scots and the Irish Rebellion of 1641 Chapter VI -
Ulster from the Restoration to the Union Chapter VII -
The Scottish Blood in the Ulster Men of Today
A Chronicle of Irish Affairs edited by William M. Hennessy, M.R.I.A.,
The Assistant Deputy Keeper of the Records also edited with translations
and notes by B. MacCarthy, D.D., M.R.I.A. Published by the authority of
the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, Under the direction
of the Council of the Royal Irish Academy from 1887 to 1901 in 4
volumes.
The Editor was desirous that the important publication of which this
forms the first volume should be published in a complete form, and not
in separate volumes, for the reason that, considering the great value of
the Chronicle, the questions so often discussed regarding the compilers
and the sources from which the work was compiled, and the relation to
each other of the MSS. from which the text has been formed, it seemed
necessary that those subjects should be dealt with in an Introductory
Essay. But it would be obviously impossible to write an Introduction of
the nature required before the whole work was in print. The Council of
the Royal Academy, under whose direction the publication of the work has
been placed by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury, having
ordered the immediate publication of this volume, the Editor submitted
respectfully to their directions. The Introduction must therefore appear
in the last volume of the work—in that, namely, containing the
Appendices and Index.
Ulster Biographies
Relating Chiefly to the Rebellion of 1798 by W. T. Latimer, B.A. (1897)
(pdf)
TO THE READER
THE following biographies have already appeared in the columns of
various Ulster newspapers. They are now revised, enlarged, and offered
to the public in a more permanent form.
It is certain that great civil and religious oppression existed in
Ireland during the last century; but we must remember that measures of
reform have now been granted more radical than Porter was hanged for
demanding. From this fact a strong argument may be drawn for maintaining
the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament by which these grievances have
been removed.
The Irish people have no longer to support a Church to which they do not
belong; rents are no longer fixed by the landlords themselves, and
justice is no longer administered by the “Agent” and the Rector, but by
impartial tribunals.
While I condemn the system of landlordism that prevailed in the past, I
have no intention of making any attack on the present landlords. Almost
all the conditions of their ownership have been so much modified that
very little of what applied to their political position in 1798, has any
reference to it now.
My own experience of modern landlordism has been derived chiefly from
the management of the estates of the Earl of Erne, the Earl of Belmore,
and of Mr. James Bruce, D.L.; and inasmuch as I have denounced the
abuses of the past, I think it only right to say, with regard to these
gentlemen, that their justice and kindness to their tenants is an
example for other Irish landowners.
The Land Acts, which have not gone far enough to enable the tenants to
live and thrive in the altered conditions of agriculture, have pressed
very heavily on many landowners. I have often wondered why a Government
which spends such vast sums on useless armaments, will not devise and
carry out a scheme of land purchase that would still further reduce the
yearly payments of farmers, and give landlords a reasonable compensation
for their losses.
It may be thought strange that I so often refer to the religion of those
whose actions I narrate; but in Ireland— especially in Ulster—a man’s
religion determines so many of his social and political relations that
it must be taken into account in order to estimate the motives by which
he has been guided.
In the districts of Antrim and Down that “turned out,” in the year 1798,
the great majority of the people were Presbyterians. It was with them
the movement began before it was taken up by the Roman Catholics; and,
therefore, in giving an account of the causes from which it sprang, it
is absolutely necessary to deal with the misgovernment and persecution
which drove so many of these loyal Presbyterians into rebellion.
A True Relation of the Actions of
the Inniskilling Men
From their first taking-up of Arms in December, 1688. for the Defence of
the Protestant Religion and their Lives and Liberties, Written by Andrew
Hamilton, Rector of Kilskerrie and one of the Prebends of the Diocese of
Clogber, in the Kingdom of Ireland, an Eye-witness thereof, and Actor
therein (1690) (pdf)
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