Introduction. We have very little information about the Scottish colony in Ireland during the Interregnum. The Scottish settlers had generally opposed Oliver Cromwell, like their confreres in their homeland, but most of them reached an accommodation with the new regime and migration from Scotland into Ireland seems to have continued during the 1650s as the Irish were further displaced and land as a consequence was cheap. We know nothing of the background of this ‘Memorandum’, such as who wrote it or the circumstances that lay behind it. The author was evidently an Englishman who was writing after Cromwell’s death in September 1658 but before there was any sign that Charles II would be invited to return to the throne, as he was early in 1660. The primary concern expressed in the memorandum was about the scattered distribution of the army in Ulster which made it vulnerable to surprise attack and the strategic relationship of Ulster to both Scotland and the rest of Ireland, but in addressing these issues, the author reveals that he considered that the Scottish immigrants were now the dominant component of the population, and that they posed as serious a threat to English authority in Ireland as the Irish. This distrust probably led to an exaggeration of the numbers of Scots resident in the province, but this does not invalidate the observation that Ulster had become, in effect, a Scottish colony rather than an English one.

These excerpts from the memorandum are taken from the ‘Calendar’ of state papers, which summarize documents rather than give them in full. Only the sections of the text that are within quotation marks represent the original wording of the document.

Source. R. P. Mahaffy (ed.), Calendar of state papers relating to Ireland 1660-1662 (London 1905), pp. 164-7.

 

A Short Memorandum what is to be looked unto in the North of Ireland

To take notice that there are 40,000 Irish and 80,000 Scots in Ulster ready to bear arms and not above 5,000 English in the whole province besides the army.

The army itself consists of few people, and half of these were born in the country, “being of Scotch and Irish extraction, although they have the English tongue.” If speedy care be not taken the English power in the country will become very weak, and this will be found if ever there be occasion. The course now taken with the army, if not prevented, will soon make it inconsiderable for the following reasons:

1. Several have prevailed to bring companies of foot for their own ends, to their own lands that they may better improve their estates and bring grist to their own mills. These lie in places useless for their own preservation or the help of others if occasion should require.

2. “The soldiers lying thus out of garrisons and near woods…give opportunity to the priests to come to the Irish in these companies to seduce them” as they did before the late war.….If the companies had been kept in good garrisons on the sea coast this could never have been attempted, “and although the Scotch and Irish are at present very quiet yet most of them desire and have hopes to be what at present they are not.”

At this time [there are] but three companies in the town of Carrickfergus and not

many more at Derry, too few to keep the castle of the one or the citadel of the other, and therefore of no terror to the Irish or Scotch….The smallness of the garrison is an invitation to the Irish and Scotch to rise and do mischief. If there were more companies here and on the sea coast they would soon become an English plantation if the things now desired be effected. [They are]:

That…new English may be yearly brought out of England....The army hereby would be as strong, the country much stronger in English; and the country would soon change both in industry and in the number of English. Without this it cannot be an English plantation “seeing both town and country in a manner swarm with the Scotch.”

“It were convenient for this part of Ireland that all the Scotch who now wear bonnets did wear hats. This would bring a trade now in Scotland into Ireland, which would be at least £10,000 yearly.” It would not only employ men of that trade now here but would bring 300 or 400 more of the same trade to follow that work…”and it would not be so visible to themselves in a short time that they were so numerous nor so great a discouragement to the English, who in all fairs and markets see a hundred bonnets worn for one hat, which is a great prejudice and doth wholly dishearten the English there already….”

It would be a very good thing to send the soldiers from Ulster to Munster and Leinster and to bring men of those provinces here because:

1. The Irish and Scotchmen in the army here were born hereabouts and are too well acquainted with their countrymen to discourage any of their attempts.

2. The English soldiers themselves in this province are most of them married to Scotch and Irish women, who remain too friendly to their parents and the country people….

5. If the soldiers are thus removed there will be more “fear and wariness” both in them and in the country people about them. The Scotch and Irish “do not in any kind love one another,” and being thus strangers to each other they will not dare trust one another; nor will the women be so ready to persuade their husbands to disregard their duty.

Another advantage which will arise from placing strong garrisons in Carrickfergus and Derry is the effect which it will have on Scotland. Carrickfergus and Derry are 70 miles asunder by sea, and both “lie on the coast of Scotland.” It will be a terror to Scotland to see so many men so near and provisions ready to carry them, “for there none can be had and that the Scots know: for Loughabor [Lochaber] and the garrisons in Scotland all along the coast have their victuals hence.”

 

Michael Perceval-Maxwell