Baltimore’s Stolen Households
Baltimore was a vulnerable place precisely because it was connected. It sat among islands, creeks and deep-water channels that offered shelter to fishing boats and passing vessels. Its harbour opened towards the Atlantic routes linking Ireland, England, Iberia and the wider ocean. The settlement had been developed in the early seventeenth century by Sir Thomas Crooke, an English lawyer and planter, on lands long associated with the O’Driscolls. English Protestant settlers had come for the fishery, especially the valuable pilchard trade, while local Irish society and older lordly interests remained close at hand.