Reference: THE BOURNE(s) FAMILIES OF IRELAND (1970) by Mary A. Strange, pages 4 – 10

It should be noted that Ireland’s history is exceedingly complicated, for throughout the centuries, religious, social andpolitical differences have prevailed. The country was frequently torn by strife and discord and beset by wars. Irish land exchanged hands many times from the period of the Normans and during the reigns of the Tudors and early Stuarts. Not until the Cromwellian era was an enduring basis for land ownership established and this continued up to the end of the nineteenth century.

The very early history of Christian Ireland, from the Gaelic Celts, through the repeated invasions of marauding bands of Norwegians and Danish invaders, to the era of Brian Boru, King of Ireland in the year 1000 A.D., is fascinating and highly recommended reading. For our immediate purposes, however, Ireland’s history begins in the twelfth century, when the English Normans, seeking new land for themselves and more men for their armies, invaded Ireland. This period saw the beginning of the feudal system in Ireland with its manors, abbeys, castles and fortresses.

As time passed, the descendants of the Anglo-Norman settlers gradually melded their original concepts and loyalties with those of their adopted land. Subsequent rulers of England were fearful that this “Irish” orientation might threaten the supremacy of the mother country, and various restrictive
steps were taken to preserve the English character of the Pale, a limited area around Dublin. Elsewhere, the settlers became more and more identified with the original Irish.

The Reformation (early sixteenth century) added the bitterness of religious differences between the Irish people and their overlords, and reprisals were made against any insurgent Irish or Anglo-Irish who did not follow the dictates of the Crown. The most common type of reprisal seemed to be the sweeping confiscations of Irish land by the Crown and the subsequent planting of English colonies.

Rebellion against the English quickly spread throughout Ireland and for years the Irish people, led by their Gaelic chieftains, fought against the domination of their powerful neighbor. By the conclusion of Queen Elizabeth’s reign in 1603, Hugh O’Neill and Hugh O’Donnell, the most powerful of the Ulster¹ chieftains, were defeated and independent Gaelic Ireland came to an end.

The Irish were now subdued and the way was cleared for James I, who ascended the throne in 1603, to send English and Scottish settlers into Ulster, thus marking the beginning of the Great Plantation in this area. The colonization of Ulster and of other parts of Ireland continued into the reign of Charles I (1625-1649), and it is not surprising that the Irish, chafing under this prolonged domination, eventually rallied against the erosion of their land holdings.

A general uprising, enhanced by religious and political grievances, commenced throughout Ireland in 1641 and in February of 1642 the English Parliament retaliated by passing the Adventurers Act. This legislation had the double-edged purpose of punishing the rebellious Irish and, at the same
time, underwriting the financing of English armies to suppress the uprising. Land held by those who opposed the English government was declared “forfeited”. Part of this property was offered to the English soldiers as a reward for their campaigning and the rest was to be sold to subscribers (or Adventurers) as a means of enhancing the national treasury Shortly after the passage of the Adventurers Act, the longstanding estrangement between Charles I and Parliament finally led to the outbreak of the English Civil War in August 1642. The turmoil caused by this conflagration added further confusion to the Irish picture. Many Catholics within Ireland declared themselves on the side of Charles I, and the confrontations between those who were pro-Charles and the other Irish (and their allies) who were pro-Parliament are known in Irish history as ‘The Confederate War.” The Adventurers Act was more or less disregarded during this period of instability.

After Charles I was deposed in 1649, the English Commonwealth government was established and Oliver Cromwell was declared Lord Lieutenant and General by the Parhament of England. Secure in their own domain, Cromwell and Parhament again focused their attention on Ireland. An army, led byCromwell, invaded Ireland and inflicted the massacres which deepened the wounds between the English and Irish. The Adventurers Act of 1642 was recalled and used as a basis for further legislation, which culminated in the Act of Satisfaction in 1653. The latter was passed for the satisfaction of the Adventurers and soldiers and repeated the provisions of the earlier act in that land was given to Cromwell’s invading soldiers in lieu of payment for their services and to the Adventurers in proportion to what they had subscribed.

The Province of Connaught played an unhappy role in this phase of Ireland’s history. Following Cromwell’s victory, the English Parliament began to clear the Irish² from their lands in the three provinces of Munster, Ulster and Leinster. Connaught, as well as the County of Clare³, was set aside for the transplanters and the “Cromwellian scheme provided for the allotment to Irish Catholics of land in proportion to their original estates and to the degree of guilt imputed to them for their share in the Confederate War“⁴.

… Although the Province of Connaught was, and still is, composed of five counties⁵ not all of them were to be finally assigned to the displaced Irish as the “claims of Cromwell’s army were so heavy that the Irish area was cut down”⁶.

County Sligo was set aside for the soldiers, as was the barony of Tirawley in County Mayo. Galway, Roscommon and certain baronies of Mayo and Clare were reserved, however, for the Irish but Leitrim was eventually taken by the soldiers.

Transplanters from Down and Antrim, both counties in the Province of Ulster, were to be settled in the baronies of Clanmorris, Carra and Kilmaine in County Mayo. Irish from the other Ulster counties were to be sent to the baronies of Murrisk, Burrishoole, Erris and Costello, all in County Mayo. Although Mayo was not originally intended for the transplanting of Irish from the Provinces of Leinster and Munster, a number from these areas were eventually sent to this county ⁷.

The English who were residing in Connaught and Clare at this time could receive, if they wished, land in one of the other provinces equivalent to their former holdings. However, the native Irish and Anglo-Irish residing in this western province had no such opportunity and they suffered by this “invasion” of transplantors as much as the transplanted Irish did themselves. Connaught’s land was not sufficiently fertile or productive to accommodate such a population explosion. Much of Connaught is bog and mountain land and it is frequently said that the expression “to Hell or Connaught“⁸ was coined during this period of settlement .

Oliver Cromwell died on the 3rd of September 1658 and the Protectorate which had been established in the of his reign soon fell apart. After several months of striving between the army and Parliament, a compromise was finally reached whereby the monarchy was restored, and Charles II (1660-1685) was recalled to the throne.

This was a time for some measure of rejoicing in Ireland as the Catholics had generally supported the Stuart dynasty, and they anticipated religious toleration and the recovery of their former estates. In his effort to resolve the land question, Charles was confronted with a most difficult problem. His sympathies lay with the Catholics and he encouraged them to believe that they would recover their property. On the other hand, he had promised the Commonwealth Army that he would retain the Cromwellian land settlements.

The Act ofSettlement (1662) tried to resolve these conflicting obligations by a compensating mechanism which was thoroughly unworkable and in 1665 an interpretive piece of legislature, called the Act of Explanation was passed. When the dust finally settled, most of Ireland remained in the hands of English and Protestant landholders. The Catholics retained a little more than twenty percent of the country, in comparison with the approximately sixty percent they had owned in 1641⁹

The death of Charles II and the ascent of James II (1685-1688) to the throne of England brought no lasting solution to the problems of either England or Ireland. James II was not successful in attempting to resolve the grievances of Religion and Land in Ireland and the three Kingdoms of Ireland, Scotland and England divided in the continuing turmoil. James found it necessary to flee to Ireland for sanctuary, and, while the Catholic Irish raUied to his support, thousands of Irish Protestants fled to England.

In February of 1689, the Parliament of England conveyed the Crown to William III and Mary. The new Protestant rulers were determined to rid Ireland of the Catholic-Stuart, King James II, and return this country once more to England’s domination. The Williamite War began, resulting in the
crushing defeat of James II at the Battle of the Boyne in July of 1690. The usual confiscations of land continued during this period, as the Protestants first surrendered their land to James II and later recovered this same property following William Ill’s victory.

William ruled until 1702¹⁰, when Queen Anne (1702-1714) came to the throne. During these two reigns, the English Settlement, as conceived by the Cromwellians, finally came into being. “A considerable part of the country was colonized by new English settlers, who were brought over as tenants by the new landowners and given land on which they built their houses and laid out their farms. The title of most of the owners of land in Ireland is ultimately derived from grants made under the “Acts of Settlement and Explanation“¹¹. 

The reign of Queen Anne and the ensuing Hanoverian regimes during the eighteenth century were difficult years for the Irish Catholic. The Penal Laws were imposed depriving them of practically all their rights as citizens. There was no immediate sign of rebellion, but toward the conclusion of this century the smoldering hatred of the Irish Catholic for their oppressors flared. French forces landing at Killala, Co. Mayo, in August of 1798 as part of the Napoleonic War created an opportunity for the Irish to strike back. From the county farmhouses, men and boys joined the invading soldiers but the strategy of the French was ill conceived and the effort unsuccessful. The Irish who did not join this rebellion were dubbed the “Suffering Loyalists“¹² and subsequently were allowed claims to compensate them for their losses during the engagement.

The following century is best known for one of the greatest tragedies that ever befell a country. This was the era of the Great Famine which began in 1845 and lasted three years. Although the time span was comparatively short, the Famine had a profound effect on Ireland’s economy. The  country’s population prior to this event was over eight million. Close to a million were wiped out by starvation and disease, and more than a million and a half emigrated to America and other countries. The decline in population persisted during the balance of the nineteenth century, and by 1900 the census wasbarely one-half the number before the Famine. As one writerhas observed, “the habit of going away was formed“¹³ .

Ireland’s history in recent years is known, in at least a general way, to anyone whose curiosity may have led him to read this book. It might be said that the intensive strivings,the turbulence and finally the violence that is now recorded as the “Anglo-Irish War” (1919-1921) were the inevitable results of economic and political events of the preceding decades. The emergence of the Republic of Ireland and the north-eastern sector that is known as Northern Ireland are facts that still play upon our emotions. From the more pedestrian standpoint of the genealogist, one of the tragedies of this period was the loss of great volumes of critical records and vital statistics.

Modern Ireland is a viable nation, growing in its industrialization and playing a responsible part in world affairs. Following its progress and treasuring its rich history and legends are literally millions of “alumni”, the descendants of the thousands of families that emigrated in the past two centuries, and more, to America, AustraHa, New Zealand, and other parts of the globe. We are proud to be a part of this great heritage.


FOOTNOTES

1. The Province of Ulster was then comprised of nine comities, i.e. Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Donegal, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, Monaghan and Tyrone. In 1920, the Government of Ireland Act established separate parliaments and governments for Northern and Southern Ireland. Six of the Ulster counties became “Northern Ireland” and are still united with England. Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan were attached to Southern Ireland and are now a part of the Republic of Ireland. ↩︎
2. These Irish included the native Irish as well as the Anglo-Irish, descendants of the former Isorman settlers. ↩︎
3. Clare is within the Province of Munster which adjoins the Province of Connaught. ↩︎
4. J. G. Simms, “Mayo Landowners in the Seventeenth Century,” The Journal of The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 95 (1965), p. 241. ↩︎
5. Connaught includes the five counties of Mayo, Sligo, Galway, Roscommon and Leitrim. ↩︎
6. Simms, op.cit., p. 241. ↩︎
7. Ibid, p. 242. ↩︎
8. Others claim that the expression is connected with the rise of the Orange Society ↩︎
9. J.G. Simms, “The Restoration and the Jacobite War (1660-1691),” The Course of Irish History, ed. T.W.Moody and F.X. Martin (19Q7) ↩︎
10. Queen Mary died in 1699. ↩︎
11. Liam Price, “The Place-Names of the Books of Survey and Distribution and Other Records of the Cromwellian Settlement,” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries
    of Ireland, Vol. 81 (1951), p. 92. ↩︎
12. See Appendix of main reference, p. 293. ↩︎
13. Roger Chauviré, A Short History of Ireland. (New York: Devin-Adair, 1956), p. 120. ↩︎