Macosquin’s Unmade Rising
In 1615, Ireland was governed in the name of King James I by Sir Arthur Chichester, lord deputy since 1605. The great wars of the previous reign had ended, but peace had not made the kingdom settled. Nowhere was this clearer than Ulster. The flight of the earls in 1607, the defeat of Sir Cahir O’Doherty in 1608, and the ensuing confiscations had opened immense territories to the crown. The Plantation of Ulster was changing ownership, settlement and authority across six escheated counties. English and Scottish undertakers received estates on conditions: they were to build, bring in British Protestant tenants and form defensible villages. Native Irish communities, meanwhile, faced removal from some lands, insecure tenures on others, and the daily presence of new landlords, courts, garrisons and boroughs.