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Immigration of the Irish Quakers
into Pennsylvania
1682 - 1750
With Their Early History in Ireland
by
Albert Cook Myers, M. L.
Member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
"There is not one of the family but what likes the country very well
and wod. If we were in Ireland again come here Directly
it being the best country for working folk & tradesmen of any in the
world, but for Drunkards and Idlers, they cannot live well any
where." - Letter of an
Irish Quaker, 1725
The Author
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
1902
PART II
CHAPTER II.
THE CROMWELLIAN SETTLEMENT OF IRELAND
Page 7-12
DURING the reign of Queen Mary, there had been adopted, for
the first time, the plan of clearing off the native tribes of
Irish from whole districts of Ireland, by expulsion or
extermination, to make room for English and Scotch settlers.
But the natives resisted and defended their homes with
desperation; and from the beginning the settlers had to fight
for their newly acquired possessions, aided, however, in their
work of extermination by Government forces. During the
twenty years from 1556 to 1576, plantations were attempted in
the present Queen's County and County Antrim/ but though the
planters committed frightful atrocities, both attempts in a
great measure failed.1
By far the most successful of all the plantations was
that made by James I., who confiscated six counties of
the Province of Ulster, and then poured in English and Scotch
colonists, giving the natives only the poorest land to live on.2
The
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1. Joyce in Traill, III., 411.
2. Ibid., IV., 195; Gardiner, 484. |
[Pg. 8]
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new settlers were an industrious class of farmers, mechanics,
weavers, and laborers;1 and soon farms, homesteads,
churches, and mills rose amidst the desolate wilds. "The
foundations of the economic prosperity which has raised Ulster
high above the rest of Ireland in wealth and in intelligence
were undoubtedly laid in the confiscations of 1610."2
This confiscation met with no opposition at the time from the
evicted Irish, who sullenly withdrew to the lands which had been
left to them.2 The "earth tillers," the lowest
class, however, in this, as in the other plantations, were
spared and allowed to live in peace, scattered among the
colonists.3 Further confiscations were made in
the Province of Leinster, under James; and Charles I. and
his agent, Strafford, continued the work.4
These confiscations and plantations were carried on for about a
century and a half, and were the chief cause of the great
rebellion of 1641.5
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The Great Rebellion of 1641 |
After the departure of Strafford from
Ireland in 1640, the natives all over the county were in a state
of dangerous exasperation, due partly to the spread of the
plantation system and partly to the measures taken to suppress
the Catholic religion.6 |
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1. Froude,
I., 76.
2. Green, 458.
3. Froude, I., 76.
4. Joyce in Traill, IV., 196-7
5. Ibid., III., 411.
6. Ibid., IV., 339. |
[Pg. 9]
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The Cromwellian
Settlement of Ireland
The disbanded soldiers of the army that Strafford had
raised, spread over the country, and blew the smouldering
disaffection into a flame. A conspiracy, organized
with wonderful power and secrecy by the Irish, broke forth
in Ulster, and spread like wildfire over the center and west
of the Island. Dublin was saved by a mere chance; but
in the open country the work of murder went on unchecked.
Great numbers of the settlers were butchered by the Irish,
and the most dreadful outrages were perpetrated.1
The estimates of those who were slain very all the way from
50,000 to 200,000. The real number was probably less
than 5,000.2 In England a cry for bitter
vengeance arose, but, the Civil War breaking out, the troops
were detained for home service, and eight stirring years,
which witnessed the fall of the Monarchy and the rise of the
Commonwealth, had passed before active measures could be
taken for the subjugation of Ireland.3
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| Meanwhile, the turn
of events in Ireland had brought the Irish Catholics and the
Royalists into power, and to subdue them the Parliament of
the Commonwealth sent over Cromwell as Lord Lieutenant, in
1649, to reduce the country to obedience. "We are
come," said Cromwell on landing
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1. Green,
541.
2. Church, 139.
3. Froude, I., 126-7 |
Cromwell in Ireland |
[Pg. 10]
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at Dublin with his "New Model," "to ask an account of
the innocent blood that hath been shed, and to endeavor to
bring to an account all who by appearing in the arms shall
justify the same."1 From Dublin he marched
to drogheda, and the storming and taking of that stronghold
was the first of a series of awful massacres. This was
followed by the terrible slaughter of Wexford.
The fate of these two towns produced such terror that town
after town surrendered. Finally, in the spring of
1650, seeing the island almost subdued, Cromwell
sailed for England, leaving Ireton, his son-in-law, to
finish the war. Ireton and his successor, Ludlow,
followed up the work with savage effectiveness and by 1652
the conquest of the country was complete.2
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| The Settlement |
In 1642, just after the
rebellion, the English Parliament confiscated between two
and three million acres of Irish soil. Debenture bonds
were issued, payable in land when the country should be
re-conquered. Bonds for a million acres had been taken
up, and money had been raised on them for the payment of
troops sent to Ireland previous to Cromwell's
arrival. Similar debentures were issued afterwards for
Cromwell's own army, though not thrown on the market
lie the first, but given to the soldiers in lieu of their
pay; and |
1 Green, 575.
2. Ibid., 574-6; Gardiner, 562-3; Joyce in
Traill, IV., 341-2. |
[Pg. 11]
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The Cromwellian
Settlement of Ireland
now that the Island was subdued, the time
had come when all these engagements were to be redeemed.1
To accomplish this end, to prevent the intermixture of the
Teutonic and Celtic races, which had been a result of the
previous plantations, and to remove all cause for future
Irish rebellions, Parliament, in 1652, passed an act to
dispossess the Irish landholders. The whole of the
population of the three provinces of Ulster, Leinster, and
Munster, except the poorer sort - small farmers, tradesmen
laborers, etc.- were ordered to transport themselves across
the River Shannon into the Province of Connaught, where they
were to be given small allotments of ground that had been
left waste. The exodus, for the most part of the
middle and upper class, across the Shannon, went on from
1652 to 1654. Later, however, many of the exiles
returned to their old homes, forming bands of outlaws or "Rapparees,"2
and from their lurking places in bogs, mountains, and
forests, made places in bogs, mountains, and forests, made
the most cruel depredations on the colonists whenever
opportunity offered. The lands vacated by the Irish
gentry were given to Cromwell's officers and soldiers, and
to other bondholders.
Under the direction of the Lord Lieutenant, Henry
Cromwell, son of Oliver, the great Cromwellian
plantation has begun. The soldiers were |
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1. Froude, I., 146.
2. An Irish word meaning and armed plunderer. |
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[Pg. 12]
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settled down regiment by regiment, troop by troop,
company by company, almost on the lands they had conquered.
Many of them, however, sold their lands to the incoming
Protestant pioneers from England and Scotland. The
Irish poor classes remained in their natural homes, as
under-tenants, or farm servants of the settlers. The
order and industry of the new owners soon changed the face
of Ireland, and it began to wear a look of quiet and
prosperity.1
The Cromwellian Settlement, and other plantations which
preceded it, bear the closest relation to our subject, for
they virtually prepared the ground for the planting of
Quakerism in the Island; and it was from these Protestant
planters and soldiers, almost entirely, that the first
Quarter missionaries to Ireland drew their recuits. |
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1 Prendergast; Joyce in
Traill, IV., 242-3; Froude I., 146-150; Green,
589-90 |
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