A chara, – As Jason Kennedy reports (Home News, May 14th), the TCD website with the 17th century Down Survey maps is “an extraordinary and unique resource for early modern Irish history”. He is, however, far too politically correct in sanitising history where he describes “the gradual transfer of land ownership from Catholics to Protestants”.
He describes it as a “transfer”, which is true, but the nature of the transfer is that of expropriation. This was not a matter of mutual agreement between the former and the new occupiers. Cromwell needed to pay his army and those who had “invested” in his campaigns.
Mr Kennedy describes it as “gradual”, which conveys an impression of a gentle process; but gradual here was a very steep gradation, more like a ladder than a gentle stairway. The TCD website shows the situation in 1641: 42.2 per cent of land in Catholic ownership and 42.1 per cent in Protestant ownership – and remember, this was the situation following other “transfers” in a series of “plantations” over the previous century. Just 29 years later, in 1670, 16.6 per cent of land was in Catholic ownership – a drop of about 60 per cent. This is more like a tsunami than a “gradual transfer”. In 1670, 69.8 per cent was in Protestant ownership. The quality of the land in each case is also a significant factor: the Down Survey assesses the quality of the land as well as acreage. Cromwell rejected the monarchy, but he nevertheless acted in the model of the Divine Right of Kings.
I point this out, not to re-ignite old enmities, but in the interests of truth and reconciliation. To deny or sanitise the facts of history we see in the Down Survey is to delay the reconciliation process which is by no means complete. It is by no means ancient history, as I know from remarks I have heard in recent years: the effects are still with us.
Sir William Petty, who organised the survey for Cromwell, found himself in 1670 the owner an estate of about 30,000 acres around Kenmare, as well lands in Cork, Down, Kilkenny and Limerick. It may be though him that we find the name Lansdowne in Ireland. – Is mise,
PÁDRAIG McCARTHY,
Blackthorn Court,
Sandyford, Dublin 16.