Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/164

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152
CONFISCATION IN IRISH HISTORY

buted among the Cromwellian settlers and no Irish proprietors allowed in them. Of 5,000,000 English acres in Connaught and Clare about 1,200,000 belonged in 1641 to Protestants who either proved good affection to the parliament, or else redeemed their estates by payment of a fine, and so were not disturbed. Of the remaining 3,800,000 which were confiscated, over 2,000,000 acres were counted as valueless—unprofitable. There were over 1,620,000 acres of profitable land confiscated, and as we shall see only something over 1,100,000 of these were allotted to Catholics.[1] The remainder, about 460,000, was distributed among the new Cromwellian settlers.

Until recent years the Transplanters' Certificates were almost our only source of knowledge for details of the transplantation. But in Vol. 2 of the Report of the Historical MSS. Commission on the Ormonde Manuscripts[2] there is a most important document dealing with this point. This is a list, or rather two lists, purporting to give the names of all the transplanted persons, their place of origin, and the number of acres set out to each. There is also a statement that the total area so set

  1. Or allowing for an error in Petty' s survey, there may have been 1,400,000 English acres set out to the transplanted. But a large number never actually received the land due to them. The Irish agents in 1664 said that 156,000 acres were still due to transplanted persons.
  2. Old Series. 1899.
    There are two lists arranged alphabetically. The first takes up forty-nine pages with about 1,540 names. Some of these, however, occur more than once. The second has no names beginning with the first four letters of the alphabet. It has fourteen pages with about 450 names. Most of these are different from those in the first list; but some names are common to both.