property of the kingdom was confiscated.1 All the Romish nobility and gentry who had taken a prominent part in the proceedings of the Confederacy forfeited the whole of their estates.2 Those who had been merely involved in the war against the Parliament-including nearly all the rest of the leading Roman Catholics of the country-escaped with the loss of two-thirds of their possessions.3 The confiscated lands were handed over-partly to the soldiers of Cromwell, to satisfy their arrears of pay-and partly to claimants called "adventurers." Not a few of these adventurers were citizens of London who, ten years before, had, under the authority of Parliament, adventured to advance money on this security to support the army in Ireland. Many of the best mansions and estates were given to the favourites of Cromwell.*

The most extraordinary part of the Cromwellian settlement of Ireland was that which related to the transportation of the Romanists to Connaught. The utter extirpation of the natives was too bold and bloody an undertaking even for the stern Protector. But he was determined completely to extinguish their influence. He accordingly resolved to shut up all their leaders in the western province; so that,

1 In 1641 the Protestants had only from one-fifth to one-third of the landed property of the island. See before, p. 113, note (3). The Protestants, after the Restoration, had three-fourths of the landed property. Sir Wm. Petty's Tracts, p. 319.

2 Many of the Royalists who opposed the Parliament incurred the same forfeiture. Among these may be mentioned the Marquis of Ormonde, Earl Clanricarde, and Lord Inchiquin. The Act of Forfeiture is given in Lingard, vol. x., pp. 422-8. London, 1847.

3 Roman Catholic writers assert that their co-religionists were at this time required to take what they call an oath of abjuration, in which Popery was formally renounced. The words of the oath are also given. See Burke's Hibernia Dominicana, p. 708; and Moran's Mem. of Plunket. Introd. p. lx. This is a gross delusion. Cromwell declared, as we have seen, that he meddled with no man's conscience; and he certainly imposed no such oath. But certain persons, who professed to be Protestants, and who thereby expected to secure certain privileges in regard to transplantation, were, it appears, as a test of their sincerity, required to take some such oath before two Justices of the Peace. See Prendergast, p. 131. The schemers, it would seem, complained heavily of this oath.

4 Thus, Portumna Castle-the ancient seat of the Earls of Clanricarde-with its park, garden, and 6,000 acres of land adjoining, was given to Henry Cromwell, the Protector's son. Prendergast, p. 163.

bounded on the one side by the sea and on the other by the Shannon, they would be comparatively innocuous-dwelling there like lepers in a separate place, and unable either to disturb the Government or to contaminate the rest of the population. For greater security, they were to be surrounded by a belt of British settlements several miles in breadth, extending all along the sea-coast and the western bank of the Shannon, and occupied by men trained to military service.1 The Romish nobility and landed gentry, who escaped with the loss of two-thirds of their property, were not permitted to retain possession of the remaining third, if their estates were in Ulster, Leinster, or Munster. They must accept an equivalent in Connaught. The whole island. was accordingly surveyed and mapped; and the various allotments of these landowners were assigned to them by commissioners appointed for the purpose. When it was considered that the needful arrangements were in a sufficient state of forwardness, the parties to be transplanted were commanded peremptorily to depart for Connaught. In September, 1653, the English Parliament passed an Act requiring them to remove before the 1st of May, 1654 If found after that date on the eastern side of the Shannon, they incurred the penalty of DEATH.3 All the Romish landowners in Ireland were subjected to this cruel proscription, except those who could show that, during the entire time of the civil war, they had manifested "constant good affection to the cause of the Parliament." 4

1 Prendergast, p. 149.

2 This survey, known as the Down Survey, was made by Sir Wm. Petty. It was called the Down Survey because it was laid down on charts or maps. Prendergast, pp. 204-6. Sir Wm. Petty was the founder of the Lansdowne family.

3 The penalty was subsequently changed to transportation. Prendergast, p. 145. See also Transac. of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxiv. Antiq., part vii, p. 396.

Prendergast, pp. 101-2. Hardiman, in his History of Galway (pp. 136, 137), describes the brutal manner in which the Roman Catholic inhabitants were

removed out of "the city of the tribes.” In the midst of a peculiarly severe winter, they were forced to take shelter by the ditches and in poor cabins in the country, without fire or sufficient clothing, and many died. According to Mr.

faith with consternation; and, when Lord Clarendon took his departure from the Irish shores, fifteen hundred of the Protestant families of Dublin are said to have left the country along with him. Nor was it extraordinary that they were unwilling to remain longer in the island. They could expect protection for neither life nor property, as the vilest men were raised to power. Tyrconnel the Viceroy was a worthless profligate, without principle and without decency; and he selected agents as unscrupulous as himself to be the instruments of his tyranny. Sir Alexander Fitton-a man convicted of forgery-had recently professed himself a Romanist; and this most suspicious convert was suddenly promoted to the important office of Lord Chancellor.2 Thomas Nugenta person notoriously ignorant of his profession-was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench; and Stephen Riceinfamous at the Inns of Court as a gamester and a cheatwas constituted Chief Baron of the Exchequer. In other appointments Tyrconnel evinced as little respect for propriety. In a northern city an individual who had been condemned to the gallows was nominated Chief Magistrate. One Turlogh O'Donnelly, who served for no less than two years as High Sheriff of Tyrone, was not even a freeholder of the county; and, when his term of office was about to expire, he was obliged to enlist as a foot-soldier to escape imprisonment for debt. Converts to Popery were specially favoured. Upwards of one hundred persons of mean condition, who now relinquished Protestantism, were immediately advanced to the

1 Leland, iii. 502.

2 Ibid. iii. 503: King's State of the Protestants of Ireland, pp. 28, 29, 65. Fourth edition. London, 1692.

3 King, p. 68. Macaulay speaks of Nugent as a "personification of all the vices and weaknesses which the English Celt then imagined to be characteristic of the Popish Celt."-Hist. of England, iii. 167.

4 King, p. 70.

5 Leland, iii. 504.

King, pp. 84, 85. Roman Catholic writers admit the recklessness of Tyrconnel's government. Thus Mr. O'Conor says that he "appointed Roman Catholic sheriffs and lord lieutenants for almost every county in Ireland, many of them paupers, without birth, education, or property."-The Irish Brigades, p. 166. Dublin, 1855.

depth of winter. Petitions for delay in transplanting were numerous and perplexing; and cases of peculiar hardship, which had not been anticipated, were continually occurring. The whole affair proved most embarrassing, and exposed the Government to immense odium. At length Cromwell saw the propriety of instructing his Irish council to dispense with the orders for transferring the natives to Connaught; but much. of the misery which the measure was calculated to produce had already been inflicted.

The plan for peopling Ulster, Leinster, and Munster with Protestants was also found to be impracticable. The colonists required servants; and as, according to an act of the English Parliament2 passed at the conclusion of the war, pardon was secured to everyone who had no real estate in Ireland, nor any personal estate to the value of ten pounds, provided such person engaged to be faithful to the Commonwealth, it was soon discovered that a large portion of the farm servants throughout the three provinces, as well as tradesmen and others in humble life, belonged to the communion of the Church of Rome. Nor was it so easy, as had been supposed, to induce Protestants from other lands3 to remove to Ireland. They might be told of its beautiful scenery, its cheap farms, and its fertile soil; but there were other things connected with it well fitted to deter them from immigration. The word Tory

1 Leland, iii. 399. An attempt was made at this time to reserve the garrison towns of the country for Protestants. In April, 1651, an order was issued requiring all the habitations of the Irish, within a circle of two miles of these towns, to be thrown down, and their wives and children to leave within fifteen days, on pain of being treated as spies and enemies. Prendergast, pp. 275-6. But it was found that the order could not be strictly enforced. It appears that in 1659 the entire number of inhabitants of the city and liberties of Kilkenny was, of English 421, of Irish 1,301 total 1,722. Proceedings and Papers of the Kilkenny and S. E. of Ireland Archæological Society, vol v., part iii., new series, 1866, p. 415. Even here the Romanists were still by far the majority.

2 See the act in Lingard, vol. x. 427. In Cromwell's Parliament there were 400 representatives for England, thirty for Scotland, and thirty for Ireland. This country had no separate Parliament during the Protectorate.

3 All foreign Protestants were made as free to settle in Ireland as natives of England. Hopes were entertained that natives of Bohemia, and other parts of the Continent, would avail themselves of this privilege. Some families from New England did so. Prendergast, pp. 248 50.

It is said to be derived from "toruighim ”—to pursue for the sake of plunder.

that he imposed a similar restriction on the champions of Romanism.1 Vacant parishes-where the patronage belonged to the Crown-were either left without a Protestant ministry, or supplied by men who reflected discredit on the cause of the Reformation.2

Nor were these the only expedients employed by this unworthy sovereign to promote the interests of Romanism in Ireland. Funds intended to provide a sound Protestant education were employed in supporting popish seminaries; and in one remarkable case a teacher who had conducted with great efficiency a school founded at Kilkenny by the Duke of Ormonde, was driven from the place; and the building converted into a military hospital.3 A Jesuits' school was established in the same town; and a charter provided for a college. The University of Dublin did not escape the injurious interference of the Government. Even during the administration of the Earl of Clarendon, the King's mandate, addressed to the Provost and Fellows, required them to admit a Romanist, named Green, to the Professorship of the Irish language with all its emoluments and arrears of salary;4 but, as no such office existed,5 the attempt proved abortive. At a subsequent period James proposed completely to alter the constitution of the College, and to fill the Fellowships with the adherents of his own religion.

The policy pursued by this infatuated monarch and his agents indicated a determination to root Protestantism out

1 At this time the popish priests and friars in the city of Dublin amounted to from three to four hundred, though the place had not then one-third of its present population. King, p. 138. With all this array of clergy, Dublin was a very den of iniquity. There were about fourteen chapels and convents built at this time in the metropolis. Ibid.

2 Mant, i. 691. Bishops also were prevented from exercising discipline on scandalous clergymen. King, pp. 230, 231.

3 Mant, i. 689.

4 Leland, iii. 504-5.

In 1680, Dr. Narcissus Marsh, then Provost, engaged teachers of Irish at his own expense, and about eighty students joined their classes. Publications of Ecc. Hist. Society. Book of Common Prayer for Ireland, i., Introd. xiv., note. This may have led persons outside the College to infer that there was an endowment for a Professor of Irish. 6 Mant, i. 689.