To Hell or Connacht

The execution of Charles I in 1649, on the orders of Oliver Cromwell, brought the English Civil War to an end. England became a Commonwealth or republic ruled by parliament with Cromwell as Lord Protector. Cromwell and his army of well trained and experienced soldiers, came to Ireland in August 1649 with the intention of subduing the Irish rebellion and stamping out all opposition to parliament. Cromwell, a Puritan, ‘believed he was an instrument of divine retribution for (alleged) atrocities committed by Catholics against Protestants in 1641 and he accordingly gave orders to deny mercy to Catholics.’

 

Cromwell arrived in Ireland with a force of 17,000 men to finally bring the Irish to submission. The campaign was savage and is remembered for the slaughter of women and children as well as unarmed captives. The city of Drogheda, population 3000, was stormed. Nearly the entire populace was slaughtered.  In his dispatch after Drogheda to the House of Commons, Cromwell declared:  “It has pleased God to bless our endeavor... The enemy was 3000 strong. I believe we put the sword to the whole number.”  On October 11, 1649, Cromwell repeated the devastation, this time, at Wexford.  Two thousand including women, children, and even infants were mercilessly butchered. Cromwell told parliament, “A righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, “adding that these massacres would tend to prevent intermingling of blood in the future. Cromwell writes, “I thought it not right or good to restrain off the soldiers from their right of pillage, or from doing execution on the enemy.”

 

Cork, Kinsale, Bandon, Youghal and Clonmel had surrendered before he returned to England in May 1650. The Puritan Parliamentarians persecuted not only Catholics, but Ulster Presbyterians, members of the Church of Ireland and those of other minority religions. Priests were hanged; exiled and Puritan preachers were brought over from England to replace them.

 

Parliament was now faced with settling its enormous debts. The English army in Ireland had not been paid for 18 months and the adventurers were demanding to be recompensed. The adventurers were so called because they lent or adventured money to parliament, a decade earlier, in response to an act called the Adventurers’ Act. They were members of Parliament, merchants and tradesmen. The money was required to raise an army to subdue the rebels in Ireland. The adventurers were offered two and a half million acres of Irish land, which was to be confiscated at the end of the rebellion, as security of their money. Suppliers of provisions and ammunition to the army also had to be paid. Irish land was to be used to settle all these debts.

 

The lands of the defeated Irish and Old English Catholics were declared confiscated and preparations began for its distribution to the various people to whom the government was indebted. In order to facilitate the redistribution a survey of the land was begun.

 

In September 1653 the English Parliament issued the order for the great transplanting. The fertile fields of Ireland were declared to be the property of British soldiers who had won them by the sword and of the English adventurers who had supported the incursion.  Under penalty of death all of the Irish were to be exiled to Connaught. No Irishman, woman, or child was to allow himself, herself, or itself to be found east of the Shannon River after May 1, 1654.

 

THE ACT FOR RESETTLING IRELAND OF 1652

The Act for Resettling Ireland was passed by the English Parliament in August 1652. While the land was being surveyed the government was deciding who should forfeit land. Degrees of guilt were established and penalties defined. By 1 May 1654, a total of 44,210 names were recorded on certificates of transplantation.

 

Owners of Irish land, whether they were Catholic, Protestant or Old English were to suffer. Some were dispossessed totally; others forfeited one fifth, one third, two thirds or three quarters of their land depending on whether their part in the rebellion was a major or minor one. They were to be recompensed from forfeited land west of the Shannon by an area equal to the proportion they were entitled to retain.

 

The initial step taken by an Irish landowner was to appear before delinquency courts where he was interrogated about his political conduct over the previous ten years thus determining his degree of guilt and the amount of land he was to forfeit. His local revenue commissioner then issued him with a Transplanter’s Certificate, a licence to cross the Shannon. The certificate gave a brief description of the transplanter and those traveling with him, the type and number of livestock and other goods he proposed to take with him. He then appeared before commissioners in Loughrea who allotted him land in Clare or Connacht on a temporary basis according to his entitlement. He would have had to appear at court in Athlone a year or two later when he would have been given permanent title to his Connacht or Clare land. This was called his final settlement.

 

The process was carried out with callous efficiency.  Thousands of weak, weary, and starving creatures forced themselves along every highway that headed west, to deeper misery, more painful starvation and often-a slow unmerciful death. Those who survived the journey, existed on milk and potatoes, and upon arrival in Connaught lived in crudely constructed turf cabins (hovels) without chimney, door, stairs, or even a window.  To those who experienced Cromwell’s great transplantation; it was- To Hell or Connaught. To most Connaught or Clare became a hell on earth.

 

Eustace Family Property Attainders, Confiscations & Forfeitures

 

On January 27, 1656, the following Eustaces were issued official decrees of land forfeiture:

County                   Barony                                                   Name                                            Property/Residence

Dublin               Newcastle & Uppercross                    Alexander Eustace                               Dowdanstown

Dublin               Newcastle & Uppercross                    Anne & Jane Eustace                           Ballymore

Dublin               Newcastle & Uppercross                    Morris Eustace                                     Castlemartin

Dublin               Newcastle & Uppercross                    Nicholas Eustace                                  Elverstown

Dublin               Newcastle & Uppercross                    Oliver Eustace                                      Ballymore

Dublin               Newcastle & Uppercross                    Oliver Eustace                                      Blackall 

Dublin               Newcastle & Uppercross                    Thomas Eustace                                   Tipperkeven       

Dublin               Newcastle & Uppercross                    Walter Eustace                                     Elverstown        

Dublin               Castleknock                                         James Eustace

Dublin               Castleknock                                         James Eustace, confy      

Dublin               City of Dublin                                       Nicholas Eustace, confy.

Kildare              Connell                                                Christopher Eustace*                           Newland

Kildare              Ikeatny, Oughter Kunny                       James   Eustace                                   Clongoweswood

Kildare              Ikeatny, Oughter Kunny                       Morris Eustace                                    Castlemartin

Kildare              Salt                                                      James Eustace, confy

Kildare                                                                          Thomas Eustace

Kildare                                                                          Thomas Eustace

Kildare              Narragh & Rebon                                Richard Eustace                                   Timolin

Kildare              Narragh & Rebon                                Rowland Eustace                                 Blackhall, Naas

Kildare              Narragh & Rebon                                William Eustace                                   Cradoxtown

Kildare              Kilkagh & Moone                                Thomas Eustace                                   Moone

Kildare              Kilkagh & Moone                                Morrice Eustace                                   Moone

Kildare              Kilkagh & Moone                                Walter Eustace                                     Ballycolone

Kildare              Killcullen Half Barony                           Morrice Eustace                                  Castlemartin

Kildare              Naas                                                    Rowland Eustace                                 Blackhall

Kildare              Naas                                                    Rowland Eustace                                 Mulla Cash

Kildare              Naas                                                    Alexander Eustace                               Dudingstown

Kildare              Naas                                                    Christopher Eustace                             New Land

Wexford            Ballyaghkeen                                        James Eustace

Carlow                                                                          Edmond Eustace                                  Garryline (transplanted                                                                                                                                                                       1653/54)

*Christopher Eustace was restored to his estate by the ACTS SETTLEMENT AND EXPLANATION:  1661-1665 by King Charles II.

 

Connaught Certificates of Transplant were issued in 1653-54 to:                            

Anne Eustace

Cisly Eustace

Francis Eustace

John Eustace

Martha Eustace

Mary Eustace-Blackhall

Walter Eustace-Ballycotlan

 

The first major map of Kildare, Down’s Survey was completed in 1656. it served as the basis of more redistribution of land confiscated after the Cromwellian conquest -see Plantations of Ireland. After the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, further estates in Kildare forfeited include those of Talbot, Dongan, Tyrrel, Eustace, Trant and Lawless. Best known of the new grantees was the Donegal-born lawyer and estate agent, William Conolly, who built the largest private house in Ireland at Castletown House, Celbridge between 1722 and 1741.

 

These pages © Ronald Eustice, 2008