Plantation of Ulster

The Plantation of Ulster (Irish: Plandáil Uladh; Ulster Scots: Plantin o Ulstèr) was the organised colonisation ("plantation") of the Irishprovince of Ulster by people from Great Britain in the early 17th century, during the reign of King James I. Most of it was on confiscated Irish land. It was the biggest of the plantations of Ireland.

Small privately funded plantations by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while the official plantation began in 1609. Most of the land had been confiscated from the native Gaelic chiefs, several of whom had fled Ireland for mainland Europe in 1607 following the Nine Years' War against English rule. The official plantation comprised an estimated half a million acres (2,000 km) of arable land in counties Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Donegal, and Londonderry. Land in counties Antrim, Down, and Monaghan was privately colonised with the king's support.

Among those involved in planning and overseeing the plantation were King James, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Arthur Chichester, and the Attorney-General for Ireland, John Davies. They saw the plantation as a means of controlling, anglicising, and "civilising" Ulster. The province was almost wholly Gaelic, Catholic, rural, and had been the region most resistant to English control. The colonists (or "British tenants") were required to be English-speaking Protestants; most came from the Scottish Lowlands and Northern England. Although some "loyal" natives were granted land, and a small number of the planters were Catholics, the native Irish reaction to the plantation was generally hostile, and native writers lamented what they saw as the decline of Gaelic society and the influx of foreigners.

The plantation led to the founding of many of Ulster's towns and created a separate and lasting Ulster Protestant community in the province with ties to Britain. It also resulted in many of the native Irish nobility losing their land and led to centuries of ethnic and sectarian animosity, which at times spilled into conflict, notably in the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and, more recently, the Troubles.