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There were attempts to plant Ulster in the 16th century. Eastern Ulster had been an Anglo-Norman colony and there were attempts in the 16th century to revive that colony. It had strategic reasons of its own though in the 16th century - the object then was to contain the migration of Scots Highlanders into Ulster, particularly into north-Antrim with the famous McDonnell family, and also it was to contain the expansionism of the O’Neills - particularly Shane O’Neill, and there were a number of projects mooted.
And when Shane O’Neill was assassinated (by the McDonnells, as it happens), after Shane’s death there was a famous act of Parliament called ‘The Act for the Attainder of Shane O’Neill’ which confiscated most of Ulster to the Crown. And thereafter proceeded in the Early 1570s, an attempt to colonise, essentially in the first instance, Antrim and Down, and since Queen Elizabeth was famous for being parsimonious and not spending a lot of money, she decided to privatise the scheme and she gave a large grant of south-Antrim and north-Down and the Ards (what would be called Clandeboye and the Ards) to her Secretary of State, Sir Thomas Smith.
And he had a very innovative colonial scheme - he had promotional literature; he sold shares in his scheme; and his son undertook the Plantation attempt in 1572 and 1573. However the son was killed at Comber by the revolting of some of his servants whom he over-much trusted and these of course were the local Irish. The thing was that Sir Thomas Smith had not considered that the local Irish would object to the Plantation and of course some of these local Irish (particularly Sir Brian MacPhelim of Clandeboye) had been active in opposing the McDonnells and the O’Neills of Tyrone, exactly the people whom the Crown were against.
So he felt as, effectively a loyalist to the State, that he was getting very short shrift indeed and he ultimately went into revolt and he prevented the Plantation of Thomas Smith’s son. And then there was a larger Plantation attempt under the first Earl of Essex which was to colonise most of Antrim and was particularly aimed against the Clandeboye O’Neills and the McDonnells in north-Antrim. It turned out to be a more-or-less disaster where Sir Brian MacPhelim made an ass out of Essex a number of times, and also Essex’s troops who came to Ireland - the soldiers did not necessarily prove good colonists. That collapsed as well.
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