The great fraud of Ulster

When Elizabethan England blazed with glory, martial and poetic, when the booty of the Spaniard enriched her adventurers, and the genius of her minstrels charmed every heart, the...

The ingenuity of Davies helped to distend beyond all honest limits the grants allotted to Chichester, who coveted properties too unique and vast to be openly proposed for his re...

At the outset of the Earl of Devonshire’s wooings, his Deputy in Dublin was one Cary, Treasurer at War. Cary, in comparison with his confederates, was a mere pedlar in villainy....

The system applied by Chichester to hoodwink the Crown and defraud the subject went undetected for years. It consisted in availing of spent King’s Letters, and issuing Patents u...

If any interest in Wakeman’s Letter lingered, grants under it would belong, not to Hamilton or Chichester, but to the Lord Lieutenant. That lovesick absentee was now on his hone...

Hugh O’Neill owned in fee the counties now styled Derry and Tyrone, with parts of Armagh and Monaghan. In Elizabeth’s reign he tried, after defeating her troops, to bring in Kin...

O’Neill, seeing his brother-in-law fall under evil influences, tried to enforce payment of his rent by “distress.” In 1606 he resumed possession from O’Cahan of the fishery of t...

Chichester had a second plan in reserve to undo O’Neill in case his London plot should miscarry. One of his creatures called Weston, whom he employed as a collector or farmer of...

O’Doherty’s destruction, coupled with the imprisonment of O’Cahan, Sir Cormac O’Neill, and Niall Garve O’Donnell, filled up the cup of Chichester’s happiness. The few difficulti...

To complete the uprooting of the Ulster chiefs, an onslaught on Sir Randal MacDonnell was undertaken. The persecution of the other chieftains might be palliated by the plea of p...

“Our dear Arthur Bassett of Dublin” was not of Dublin, but of Umberley, in the County of Devon. He was brought over to serve as jackal for his uncle, and the Patent suddenly mad...

When Chichester realised that the Charter to the Londoners was to include the Bann and Lough Foyle, he began a game of cross-purposes to undermine the royal project. On the retu...

In November, 1610, the Deputy assembled his men-of-law in the Star Chamber and proceeded to blot out the rights of Sir Randal in a way the King could find no fault with. A repor...

With the coming of the Planters, Chichester, being by law disabled from holding land without the King’s sanction, grew anxious as to the title of his ill-gotten estates. Many of...

Chichester’s place in Dublin Castle was taken by his old servitor, Sir Oliver St. John. The veteran himself retired to Carrickfergus, and there awaited his opportunity, spreadin...

Once Buckingham’s protection had been purchased by the Lord High Treasurer his confidence grew apace. Alive to the danger he had escaped, Chichester strove to prevent further ri...

Lord Falkland was appointed Deputy on the 1st April, 1622. This change James I. emphasised a month later by the protest just mentioned against the abuse of his Royal Letters und...

The harrying of the O’Byrnes under Chichester was largely carried out through Sir William Parsons, his Surveyor-General—a seasoned and hardy pillager. Parsons was a Commissioner...

In 1630 a “case” was submitted to Sir Robert Oglethorpe, one of the Barons of the Exchequer, who in 1623 had denounced their origin. Oglethorpe retired in 1624 from his position...

In February, 1654, the London Corporation petitioned Cromwell to be restored to their Irish estates. The Protector readily consented. Indeed, his kingly victim had promised in 1...

The Irish Republicans quickly came to the conclusion that monarchical principles possessed a virtue which afforded the best guarantee for their interests. Their budding royalism...

In July, 1660 (two months after the Restoration), Clotworthy learnt that Sir Arthur Chichester, now Earl of Donegall, was travelling to London to greet the new sovereign. Lord D...

At the height of Clotworthy’s intrigue for the confirmation of his lease Lord Donegall reached London, being wafted across the Channel in a royal frigate. He soon realised at Wh...

In June, 1661, Lord Donegall set sail for Ireland, furthered by Treasury permits freeing him from Customs duties. On arrival in Dublin, he sued for a Patent under the King’s Let...

In the century which followed the reign of the Stuarts no record worth mention remains of the doings of Lord Donegall’S descendants. Gaelic annalists, who would have cherished l...

In 1755 Lord Massereene’s lease of 1660 expired, and in 1769 the Lord Donegall of that day began to take thought of his “reversion” to the fisheries. The claim of the Chichester...

The acceptance by the Londoners of the parchments of Lord Donegall was an event of mournful significance for East Ulster. The concern of the public in it was immediate, for it c...

Although the King’s Letter to Thomas Irelande only authorised a gift to the value of £100 a year, the Courts were not advised that it had been drawn upon by a previous grant. Be...

In 1910 the fishermen appealed to the House of Lords. After a week’s debate that tribunal stood equally divided, and a second hearing was ordered. The arguments were renewed bef...