Plantation in Fermanagh

The Plantation of Ulster began in the early 17th century under King James I, when English and Scottish Protestants settled on land confiscated from the Gaelic Irish.

Land was apportioned to Scottish and English undertakers (landlords given an estate of land in exchange for an undertaking to settle English or Scottish families) or servitors (those who had served the monarch as an official or a soldier in the Irish campaign). Some Irish freeholders willing to swear allegiance to the Crown were also rewarded with land ownership.

In 1609, King James I commissioned Sir Josias Bodley to survey the confiscated lands in six northern counties to enable the government to allot land to new settlers and others involved in the Plantation of Ulster.

Image shows the map of ‘The Barony of Magherysteffanah with Ye Two Halfe Bar: of Coole and Tircannada’, originally made by Sir Josias Bodley and then copied in 1860 by Sir Henry James, Director of the Ordnance Survey