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Official reaction to native land claims in the plantation of Munster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Anthony J. Sheehan
Anthony J. Sheehan*
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin
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Extract

The historiography of the Munster plantation has not been extensive; in the ninety-five years since Robert Dunlop published the first proper study of the greatest of all the Tudor settlements in Ireland, only D. B. Quinn has treated the subject in any detail. In the absence therefore, of any full-scale study of the plantation, it is fair to say that it has usually been characterised as the process of driving the native Irish off their lands and settling them with English colonists. In this scenario, the administrations, both in England and Ireland, are seen as backing the settlers judicially and extra-judicially, and the natives come off distinctly the worst; as Quinn puts it, the native population greatly resented the ‘presence and domination of the planters who were felt to twist the law in favour of a minority’. Yet, a study of the extant evidence does not support this simple stereotyping; rather, both the privy council (to which many of the native land claims were directed) and the government commission of 1592 were quite willing to consider cases against the undertakers and their tenants and to rule in favour of the native claimant. For instance, Hugh Cuffe, who had originally been granted a seignory of 12,000 acres in Cork, lost most of it to appeals by Ellen Fitzedmund Gibbon and James MacShane to the privy council in 1591, and had to make do with a new grant of a mere 1,953 acres in the same area.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 92 , November 1983 , pp. 297 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1983

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References

1 Dunlop, Robert, ‘The plantation of Munster, 1584-1589’ in E.H.R., iii (1888), pp 250-69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Quinn, D. B., ‘The Munster plantation: problems and opportunities’ in Cork Hist. Soc. Jn., lxxi (1966), pp 19–40 Google Scholar. See also my article ‘The population of the plantation of Munster: Quinn reconsidered’ in Cork Hist. Soc. Jn., lxxxvii (1982), pp 107–17, for a critique of the population estimates made by Professor Quinn for the plantation in the 1590s. This article and the present one arose out of work done for my M. A. thesis, ‘Provincial grievance and national revolt: Munster in the nine years war’ (University College, Dublin, 1981).

2 In Cuffe’s case, as in all the other land suits dealt with in this essay, evidence is fragmentary and difficult to fit together; any reconstruction involves much piecing together of these fragments; see Acts privy council, 1590, pp 37–8, 44–5, 130–31; ibid., 1591, pp 83–4; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1592–6, pp 248–9. His original grant is in Fiants Ire., Eliz., no. 5066; his later ones are in ibid., nos 6144 and 6186.

3 Quinn, ‘Munster plantation’, p. 24.

4 There is a good account of the commission’s activities in Dunlop, loc. cit., pp 252–5; the original manuscript of the survey was lost in the destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922, but a calendar of the section relating to Kerry was translated and printed privately by Samuel Hussey in 1923, and afterwards published in the Kerryman, Aug.-Oct. 1927. A copy of the printed book is in P.R.O.I., MS M.5037; MS M.5038 is a handwritten calendar of the section of the survey relating to Limerick; MS M.5039 is a calendar of the so-called Peyton survey of Limerick, which is largely a mere copy of the Desmond survey itself, but without the money values included. The inquisitions in Cork are in Cal. Carew MSS, 1574–88, p. 385, but a comprehensive collection of brief summaries for the entire province is in P.R.O., S.P. 63/172/58. I wish to thank Professor John A. Murphy for making available to me his forthcoming edition of the Desmond surveys. This edition, which has been prepared for the Irish Manuscripts Commission, will comprise the three above-mentioned P.R.O.I. MSS (the only remains of the surveys of 1584 and 1586) together with the 1598 survey of the MacCarthy More lordship from the Carew MSS in Lambeth Palace.

5 Perrot constantly belittled the work of the commission, saying it would come to nothing (Cal. S.P. Ire., 1574–85, p. 48).

6 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1574–85, p. 550; Dunlop, ‘Plantation of Munster’, pp 259–61.

7 P.R.O., S.P. 63/110/78. This document gives a brief conspectus of the values of the escheated lands in each of the counties as reckoned by the surveyors; it is particularly valuable because we possess only the sections on Kerry and Limerick (see note 4). The figures shown in the text are corrected from the MS, which has some errors in addition. As well as the figures for Munster, the document reckons the value of the attainted lands in Leinster at £599 17s. 101/2d., to give a grand total of £10487 9s. 10d..

8 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1592–6 p. 4.

9 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1592–6 pp 4–5, 53–4.

10 Acts privy council. 1591–92, pp 364–5, 570–71.

11 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1586–8, pp 385–6.

12 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1588–92, p. 257.

13 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1588–92, pp 18–19, 257; Acts privy council, 1590, pp 204–5; ibid., 1592–3, pp 138–41; ibid., 1597–8, p. 195.

14 Wilbraham to the lords commissioners for Munster causes, 11 Sept. 1587 (Cal. S.P. Ire., 1586–8, pp 405–7).

15 For the commission’s patent and instructions, see Cal. S.P. Ire., 1586–8, pp 548–53; queen to Fitzwilliam, (15) Mar. 1588 (ibid., p. 497).

16 P.R.O.,S.P. 63/134/24; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1586–8, p. 552; for examples of suits ordered back to the commission, see Acts privy council, 1587–8, pp 281, 306–7, 318–19.

17 The proceedings of the 1588 commission are in Cal. S.P. Ire., 1588–92, pp 14–26; Shighane: ibid., p. 25; Roche: ibid., pp 19, 23–4. He persisted with his claim to Carrigleamleary and had it rejected again in 1589 (ibid., p. 247) and 1592 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/168/l0.i, ff 67–8); O’Grady: Cal. S.P. Ire., 1588–92, pp 14–15; Wilbraham to Burghley, 1 Oct. 1588 (ibid., p. 51).

18 Roche to Walsingham, 15 Oct. 1588 (Cal. S.P. Ire., 1588–92, p. 60).

19 Acts privy council, 1592–3, pp 286–92.

20 For an interesting contemporary account of this, see Browne, Nicholas, ‘The means howe to keepe the provynce of Mounster and suche as are of anye force thearin from being able hereafter to raise any power’ in Cork Hist. Soc. Jn., xii (1907), pp 253-68, especially pp 255-6.Google Scholar

21 The Condon case produced dozens of documents right up to 1598; the first years are set out in Cal. S.P. Ire., 1586–8, pp 256–7; Acts privy council, 1589–90, pp 180–81, 265–6.

22 P.R.O., S.P. 63/172/44; Acts privy council 1589–90, pp 339–41; ibid., 1591–92, p. 469; ibid., 1592, pp 73–6.

23 Raleigh and Pyne’s intervention: Cal. S.P. Ire., 1592–6. pp 248, 253, 275; Hyde’s counter-attack: ibid., pp 145, 244; Acts privy council, 1597, p. 149. There are many documents setting out the various claims and counter-claims, but as these involve a good deal of repetition, reference to a few will suffice: P.R.O., S.P. 63/175/54 and 74. The ultimate outcome of the dispute is told in Cal. S.P. Ire., 1598–9, p. 499.

24 Acts privy council, 1589–90, p. 284.

25 Acts privy council. 1588–9, p. 384; ibid., 1590–91, p. 120; ibid., 1591, p. 312; ibid., 1591–92, p. 42; ibid., 1592, pp 75–6; ibid., 1596–7, p. 79; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1588–92, pp 357, 515–16.

26 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1588–92, pp 128, 379; Beeston and Bostock’s patent is in Fiants Ire., Eliz., no. 5444; Carter’s patent is no. 5717; Acts privy council, 1588, pp 166–7; ibid., 1590, p. 32; see also P.R.O., S.P. 63/172/58, f. 280.

27 Acts privy council, 1591–92, pp 311–12.

28 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1588–92, pp 213–14; Acts privy council, 1591–92, pp 42–3.

29 The valuable abstract of the proceedings of the 1592 commission in regard to land is not calendared: P.R.O., S.P. 63/168/l0.i. The MS was originally a separate folio book, but when it was broken up into its component leaves for binding into its State Paper volume, the second part, consisting of counties Limerick, Waterford and Tipperary was placed before the first part, counties Kerry and Cork. A separate index (P.R.O., S.P. 63/172/58, ff 288–91), seemingly referring to the original documents drawn up by, and presented to, the commission (they were sent to the exchequer in Dublin and are no longer extant) gives details of some eight cases not referred to in the abstract. Four were dropped or sent to other courts; three were won by the plaintiffs and one by the defendant. For O’Mahoney and MacCarthy, see P.R.O., S.P. 63/168/l0.i, ff 60–61; for Edmond Lees, ibid., f. 39; for Gerratt Moore, ibid., f. 52; for Shighane, Acts privy council, 1591, p. 344.

30 Henry Wallop, ‘Relation of the progresse of Ter-Oens rebellions’ in B.L., Cotton MS Titus C.VII, ff 150–54; Norreys to privy council, 28 Nov. 1594 (P.R.O., S.P. 63/177/25); Quinn, ‘Munster plantation’, p. 33.

31 Roche to Ormond, 18 Mar. 1599 (Cal. S.P. Ire., 1598–9, p. 500); Norreys to Cecil, 26 Mar. 1599 (ibid., pp 497–8). See also O’Sullivan Beare, Ire. under Eliz., pp 118–19.

32 Falkiner, C. L. (ed.),‘William Farmer’s chronicles of Ireland from 1594 to 1613’ in E.H.R., xxii (1907), pp 104-30, 527-52, at pp 109-10.Google Scholar

33 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1598–9, p. 288. 9,400 cows, 4,800 mares and garrons, 58,800 sheep and hogs, and corn and household stuffs valued at £8,200 were taken by the rebels.

34 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1598–9, p. 499.

35 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1598–9, p. 318; Norreys and George Thornton to the privy council, 10 Oct. 1598 (ibid., 1601–03, pp 606–7); Edmund Fitzgibbon, the White Knight, to Cecil, 27 Nov. 1600 (ibid., 1600–01, p. 139).

36 Fitzthomas to Ormond, 12 Oct. 1598 (Cal. S.P. Ire., 1598–9, pp 287–8). A petition from Fitzthomas to Perrot asking for the restoration of his father in 1583 is in Cal. Carew MSS, 1589–1600, pp 489–90, where it is misdated to 1584, though it was plainly written before the death of Earl Gerald.

37 Cal. Carew MSS, 1601–03, p. 78. For a full account of the 1598 rebellion, see my article ‘The overthrow of the plantation of Munster in October 1598’ in Ir. Sword, xv, no. 58 (Summer 1982), pp 11–22.

38 B.L., Add. MS 34313, f. 86. For a brief discussion of this interesting tract, see n. 6 of my ‘The overthrow of the plantation of Munster’.

39 Quinn, ‘Munster plantation’, p. 24.