of the coast.[1] Thus they would be effectually shut off from all communication with the outside world.
It appears quite untrue to say that Connaught was chosen as being the poorest and most barren part of the country. Ulster in the 17th century had that distinction. The Parliament when raising money to put down the Irish rising declared that they would give one acre of land in Leinster for every 12s.. advanced, one in Munster for every 8s.., one in Connaught for every 6s., and one in Ulster for 4s.. Besides Connaught and Clare must have suffered much less than the rest of the island during the preceding years of strife. Between 1642 and 1651 Clare had been practically undisturbed and though the Scots had more than once devastated Connaught with great ferocity, the destruction of property cannot have been nearly as great west of the Shannon as in those parts, such as most of Leinster, exposed in turn to inroads from all of the contending parties.
It was in September, 1653, that it was at last announced that Connaught and Clare had been selected as the region where all those Irish entitled to lands by the preceding Act were to receive them. All the Irish were to remove beyond the Shannon before May 1st, 1654. Any found on this side of the river after that date were to suffer death.
- ↑ If this plan had been carried out the inhabitants of Achill, the Aran islands, Inishboffin, &c. should now be all of British descent. But the names of the present inhabitants, their language and characteristics show that the intermixture of British is so small as to prove that this scheme was never carried through, perhaps was never even attempted.
