Co. Londonderry, Donegal and Tyrone

The three counties of Londonderry, Donegal and Tyrone, in the north west of Ulster, included some of the most remote and inhospitable country in Ireland. Donegal, in the west, contained some good land, but also considerable areas of ‘mountain, bog and unprofitable ground’; in the sixteenth century it had been dominated by the O’Donnells, captains of Tyrconnell, who ruled the area from Donegal Castle until their demise in 1607. Description of Ire. Anno 1598 ed. E. Hogan (1878), 29-31; Civil Survey, iii. 2, 23, 55, 72. Tyrone, to the south, was the homeland of the powerful O’Neills, earls of Tyrone. Like Donegal, Tyrone included large areas of mountain and bog, but to the east the land improved, and the baronies of Dungannon and Strabane had attracted Scottish settlers even before the attainder of the O’Neills and the formal plantation of the county under James I. Description of Ire. ed. Hogan, 26-7; Civil Survey, iii. 248, 310, 330, 373. Londonderry (formerly County Coleraine), in the north east, was potentially the most fertile of the three. Traditionally under the O’Cahan clan (which enjoyed the protection of the O’Neills), from 1609 the county was confiscated, and systematically planted by the Irish Society of the City of London, which rebuilt the city of Londonderry and town of Coleraine. Description of Ireland, 28; Civil Survey, iii. 144, 220.

The plantation brought an influx of speculators, who soon took over the local government from the native Irish. In Donegal there was ‘low intensity plantation’, with much of the land remaining in Irish hands, although there was a strong Scottish presence, and English families such as the Brookes, Folliots, Gores and Chichesters acquired major landholdings; in Londonderry, the London companies were joined by a host of private investors, some of whom, such as Tristram Beresford senior, had official links with the Irish Society; and in Tyrone, the leading settler was Lord Caulfield, who was given military command in the area. CSP Ire. 1625-32, pp. 254-5, 475; R.J. Hunter, ‘Plantation in Donegal’, in Donegal: History and Society ed. W. Nolan, L Ronayne and M. Dunlevy (Dublin, 1995), 286-9. The Church of Ireland (in the form of the archbishop of Armagh, and the bishops of Clogher, Derry and Raphoe) did well out of the plantation, as did Trinity College Dublin, which acquired substantial holdings in County Donegal. CSP Ire. 1625-32, p. 254-5. In addition, there was a concentration of Scottish Catholic settlers in County Tyrone, encouraged by land-grants to the earl of Abercorn and his Hamilton relatives. CSP Ire. 1625-32, pp. 509-10. The elections for the pre-1641 Irish Parliaments demonstrate the extent to which the planters controlled local politics. In 1634 the county seats for Tyrone and Donegal were shared by English and Scottish landowners, while Londonderry returned Tristram Beresford and his son-in-law, George Carey. H. Kearney, Strafford in Ire. (Cambridge, 1989), 254-5, 258-9. In 1640 five of the six county MPs were local planters, including Toby Caulfield, his son-in-law Ralph Gore, and Edward Rowley, brother-in-law of Tristram Beresford. McGrath, Biographical Dict.

Despite outward appearances, the settler communities were vulnerable, as much of the area still populated by Gaelic septs with strong allegiances to the old families. Other problems were of the settlers’ own making: it was the failure of the London companies to introduce Protestant tenants which brought the confiscation of their land-holdings by Charles I in 1635. CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 182-3, 192-211. The extent of the weakness of English rule was demonstrated in 1641, when the native Irish of the three counties quickly followed their southern neighbours into rebellion. CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 346. Dungannon, Strabane and other towns in Tyrone soon fell to the rebels; apart from a few strongholds, Donegal was occupied; and the citadels of Londonderry and Coleraine, cut off from the inland areas now dominated by Irish insurgents, became overcrowded with refugees. J.S. Curl, The Londonderry Plantation (Chichester, 1986), 91-2. After the first shock of rebellion, the settler communities in the west of Ulster recovered remarkably quickly. The refugees in the city of Londonderry organised themselves into companies for its defence, and in County Donegal regiments were raised by Sir Audley Mervyn, Sir William Stewart and other landowners, which came together to form the ‘Laggan’ army. Assisted by the Scottish army, the settlers gradually drove the rebels out of the north west, in a campaign that culminated in the resounding defeat of Owen Roe O’Neill at Clones in June 1643. K. McKenny, The Laggan Army in Ireland, 1640-1685 (Dublin, 2005), ch. 2. Relying on the Scots was divisive, however, as during 1644-5 the English settlers were obliged to take the Covenant, and this in turn led to a pro-royalist reaction in some areas. K. Forkan, ‘Ormond’s alternative: the lord lieutenant’s secret contacts with Protestant Ulster, 1645-6’, HR lxxxi. 613-14. Among the English commanders who renewed their links with Ormond at this time were Sir Audley Mervyn and the new governor of Londonderry, Lord Folliot. Folliot, although appointed by Parliament, made contact with Dublin as soon as he had taken over his command in August 1645. CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 60; Bodl. Carte 15, f. 367.

The catastrophic defeat of the Scottish army at Benburb in June 1646 left north-west Ulster open to attack; and into the breach stepped Parliament’s lord president of Connaught, Sir Charles Coote*, who had extended his military influence over the area well before his official appointment as commander of its forces in March 1647. In 1648, when Ulster Scots turned against the parliamentarians and signed the Engagement, Coote arrested suspected royalists, including Sir Audley Mervyn, and he had brought the region under his control by the end of the year. K. Forkan, ‘The Ulster Scots and the Engagement, 1647-8’, Irish Hist. Studies, xxxv. 458-62, 473-4. The Laggan regiments mutinied in early 1649 and, with Scottish support, besieged Coote inside Londonderry until he was relieved by Owen Roe O’Neill. It was only with the arrival of Cromwellian forces in the late summer that the city was finally secured. D. Stevenson, Scottish Covenanters and Irish Confederates (Belfast, 1981), 268, 274; McKenny, Laggan Army, ch. 5. Thereafter, Coote, working with Colonel Robert Venables* and his English brigade, made rapid gains, culminating in the destruction of the Irish army of Ulster at Scarrifhollis in County Donegal in June 1650. M. Ó Siochrú, God’s Executioner: Oliver Cromwell and the Conquest of Ire. (2008), 136-9.

Once the last pockets of resistance had been suppressed, the work of settlement restarted. Much of the area had been devastated by over a decade of war: in the 1651 assessments the rates for counties Londonderry and Tyrone were £250 and £100 respectively, far less than Donegal, which was allocated £700. In the event, even these moderate levies proved impossible, and in early 1652 Tyrone was one of the Ulster counties which could raise no contribution at all. Ire. under the Commonwealth, i. 60, 131, 140; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 699. Nevertheless, the three counties became incorporated into the land settlement. In 1656, part of Donegal was allocated to those who had fought in Ireland before 1649, and in 1657 other areas in the same county were granted to soldiers’ widows and orphans. CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 646, 825, 841; Ire. under the Commonwealth, i. 579, 599. In 1654 the protectorate council considered what to do with the Londonderry plantation, and in September 1655 decided to re-grant the patent of the City of London, although the patents to the individual companies were not renewed until 1658. CSP Dom. 1654, p. 269; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 315; Curl, Londonderry, 95. By March 1659 the economic position of the three counties seems to have improved, with Londonderry expected to yield £1,012, Donegal £1,143 and Tyrone £550 as their share of the three month assessment. An Assessment for Ire. (Dublin, 1659).

As the painful business of reconstruction got under way, the political vacuum left by the confiscation of the London companies and the military defeat of the Ulster Scots encouraged the Coote family to try to extend their influence (already well-established in Connaught and County Cavan) into north-western Ulster. In this they were only partly successful, as the election results during the Cromwellian protectorate demonstrate. In June 1654 the protectoral council combined the three counties into one constituency, returning two MPs to Westminster, with the elections being held in the city of Londonderry. CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 800. In 1654 the chosen MPs were a Cromwellian soldier, Colonel John Clerke II, and a County Tyrone landowner who had served under Lord Folliot, Thomas Newburgh. Mercurius Politicus no. 219 (17-24 Aug. 1654), 3710 (E.809.5). The election indenture does not suggest the Cootes had much involvement, as the list of signatories, headed by Lord Folliot and Lord Caulfield, was made up almost entirely of men whose families had been settlers in the region before 1641, including Richard Perkins, Thomas Caulfield, George Carey and George Phillips. C219/44, unfol. In 1656 Newburgh was joined by the influential County Londonderry landowner who also had military connections with the Cootes, Tristram Beresford. The election indenture, although damaged, again suggests this was a local affair, and the growing influence of the pre-1641 landowners is also suggested by the assessment commission lists drawn up in May 1657, which included members of Beresford’s circle, prominent landowners, such as Lords Caulfield and Folliot, and even a few Scottish settlers, headed by the earl of Annandale. C219/44, unfol.; An Assessment for Ire. (Dublin, 1657). The influence of the old settlers was also hinted at in December, when William Dobbins, who looked to replace the recently deceased Thomas Newburgh, told a correspondent that he trusted that ‘my Lord Folliot, if a little backed by a letter from the lord deputy, would appear for me in County Donegal’. HMC Egmont, i. 593.

Dobbins’ comment was prescient. In the highly managed election in 1659, the choice in the north west, as in other areas of Ireland, was coordinated by Henry Cromwell*, now lord lieutenant. The MPs returned both had personal links with the Cromwells, not the Cootes: Alexander Staples was a minor County Londonderry landowner, but had married into the Cleypoole (or Claypoole) family; and John Gorges was lieutenant-colonel of Henry Cromwell’s regiment, brother of Henry’s secretary, Dr Robert Gorges, and also an experienced MP, having sat for Somerset seats in 1654 and 1656. After the collapse of the protectorate and the resignation of Henry Cromwell in the spring of 1659, the regional landowners seem to have once again looked to Sir Charles Coote for a lead. In the returns for the General Convention of March 1660, Londonderry elected Coote’s ally, Tristram Beresford and his relative, John Rowley; Donegal elected yet another Beresford relation, George Carey, alongside Richard Perkins; while Tyrone bucked the trend by choosing the former royalist, Sir Audley Mervyn, with the aristocratic Arthur Chichester. It may be significant that Mervyn was related to Sir John Clotworthy, and that Chichester also had family connections to Viscount Ranelagh (Arthur Jones*) and Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*). Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 178, 180, 186.

The restoration of the monarchy allowed the old landowners to consolidate their position. Despite the favours shown to Sir Charles Coote (created earl of Mountrath in 1660) he was unable to maintain any lasting influence in north-west Ulster, and other interests soon began to dominate the region. The former royalist Viscount Montgomery of the Ards (later earl of Mount-Alexander) was appointed governor of Londonderry, Tyrone and Donegal in November 1660. CSP Ire. 1660-2, pp. 78, 442. In County Londonderry, the London companies were keen to reassert their position under the new regime. CSP Ire. 1663-5, p. 546. In County Donegal, the Old Protestants were able to secure their 1650s land gains by royal order in March 1661, but these were not allowed to interfere with efforts to restore and reward royalists such as Viscount Drogheda, Marcus Trevor and the bishop of Raphoe. CSP Ire. 1660-2, pp. 118, 243, 262. In County Tyrone, Cromwellian land-grants were overturned by a number of individual grants, especially to members of the Hamilton clan, and to the Chichester family. CSP Ire. 1660-2, pp. 238, 534, 596, 676; 1663-4, pp. 250, 547, 567-8. The county elections for the Irish Parliament of 1661 saw two settlers with strong connections with the London companies returned for County Londonderry; Charles Hamilton elected for County Donegal; and two former royalists, Sir Audley Mervyn and Sir Arthur Forbes chosen for Tyrone. CJI i. 590. This balance between the English and Scottish planter interests bears a striking similarity to that achieved in the Parliament of 1634.