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The Flight of the Earls is often considered as the catalyst for the Ulster Plantation, and to some extent that is true, but you know, some consideration must be given to O’Doherty’s rebellion in April 1608 in Derry as the major reason why the Plantation of Ulster turned out to be a very ambitious project. It became a much more grand Plantation scheme, it was described as blanket settlement of Protestants.

Now all of this resulted - certainly this blanket or saturation process - resulted more from the O’Doherty rebellion actually than The Flight of the Earls. And the reason is that O’Doherty, Sir Cahir O’Doherty from Inishowen was a Crown ally - he had in fact been knighted by the English during the nine years’ war. He was actually, you know, referred to at the time as ‘the Queen’s O’Doherty’. So the fact that O’Doherty launched a new revolt in Derry in April 1608 came as a major shock to the Crown: if you can’t rely on your supporters, the native Irishmen in Ulster, who can you rely on?

And it was for this reason that King James 1 became persuaded that the Plantation should result in many more Protestants coming to Ulster, rather than a mixture of Protestants coming to Ulster and relying on your allies among the native Irish.
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