tioned from Ostend, St. Malo, Cadiz and other places, even from far-off Mexico, to say that God had blessed their efforts while in exile and that they had gained considerable wealth by trade, and therefore hoped to be allowed to return home.
Of those landowners who had lost all, some were restored at the Restoration to their ancient estates. So too were some of those who had received lands in Connaught. The remainder of these stayed on in Connaught where their descendants hold to the present day the estates to which they were transplanted. But in the stress of the penal days in the 18th century many of them became Protestants.
Of the new settlers scarcely six of the adventurers founded families. Some forty years after the transplantation many of the children of Cromwell's soldiers could not speak a word of English. The private soldiers who received small grants of land sold them for trifling sums to their officers or to others. Dr. Petty, the surveyor, bought up great tracts of country in this way at very cheap prices. If they remained in Ireland they very generally married Irish women—though this was forbidden under very stringent penalties, and these women generally brought up their children as Catholics. Thus the projected plantation in great measure failed. There are said to be some parts of the country, notably Tipperary, which are almost entirely Catholic, though the names and often the appearance of the people clearly show that they are descended from Cromwell's Roundheads.[1]
- ↑ There is however but little foundation for the theory that the population of Tipperary is to a large measure of Cromwellian descent. According to the Census of 1659 there were then in the whole county 24,760 Irish and only 1,924 English.
