tain the names of one hundred O'Neills, while we know that not ten of that name can have held any land after the Restoration. Yet making all deductions the number attainted seems surprisingly large.[1]
And on the other hand the amount of land they are said to have held between them seems surprisingly small, even though to the area specified we must add a certain amount for lands of which the Report says no proper surveys existed, and also between seventy and eighty thousand acres for small scattered parcels of which many, they say, only amounted to a single acre.
If between them the forfeiting persons held only something over one million one hundred thousand plantation acres, or allowing for Potty's error, concealments, etc. something like two and a quarter million English acres, what credence can be given, as I have said already, to Potty's statement, accepted blindly by most modern writers, that the Catholics after the Restoration settlement still held one-third of the profitable land of Ireland, i.e., five million English acres? These are points deserving[2] of a fuller study than can be given here.
- ↑ See for information as to the lists of attainders Appendix to the 17th Report of the Deputy-keeper of the Public Rolls.
- ↑ On the other hand it seems difficult to accept the figures of the Commissioners. The Earl of Clancarthy, the Earl of Limerick and Viscount Clare between them forfeited nearly 400,000 English acres. Among those secured by the Articles of Limerick was the Earl of Antrim, the owner of an immense estate, and, for a time, Grace of Courtstown who held over 30,000 English acres. In the forfeited area also were included the immense estates of the Earls of Clanrickard and Kenmare; the former ultimately restored by the King, the latter secured to the Kenmare heirs by the Court of Claims.
