Politics and Society, 1600-1800

The history of Ulster since 1603 was part of the history of Scotland and England, as well as of Ireland, and it is important to bear these three sets of reference points in mind when seeking to understand the complex political developments of the seventeenth century. The rebellion of O’Neill and other Ulster chiefs ended in 1603. The confiscation of Gaelic and Catholic-owned estates that followed was a major cause of the 1641 rebellion and the notorious massacre of Protestant settlers in that year. There followed two decades of “massacre and mayhem”. The Williamite wars at the end of the century virtually completed the objective of confiscating Catholic estates. The eighteenth century was remarkably quiescent, by comparison, though the insurrection of the United Irishmen in 1798 and subsequent reprisals brought the century to a bloody end.