Plantation (settlement or colony)
In the history of colonialism, a plantation was a form of colonization in which settlers would establish permanent or semi-permanent colonial settlements in a new region. The term first appeared in the 1580s in the English language to describe the process of colonization before being also used to refer to a colony by the 1610s. By the 1710s, the word was also being used to describe large farms where cash crop goods were produced, typically in tropical regions.
An illustration of Providence Plantations as it appeared c. 1650
Plantations in 16th- and 17th-century Ireland involved the confiscation of Irish-owned land by the English Crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from Great Britain. The Crown saw the plantations as a means of controlling, anglicising and 'civilising' Gaelic Ireland. The main plantations took place from the 1550s to the 1620s, the biggest of which was the plantation of Ulster. The plantations led to the founding of many towns, massive demographic, cultural and economic changes, changes in land ownership and the landscape, and also to centuries of ethnic and sectarian conflict. They took place before and during the earliest English colonisation of the Americas, and a group known as the West Country Men were involved in both Irish and American colonization.
The Irish Gaelic chieftain receives the priest's blessing before departing to fight the English, who are shown in full armour.
Hugh O'Neill, who led the Irish rebellion against the English.
A portion of the city walls of Derry, originally built in 1613–1619 to defend the plantation settlement there.
Lismore Castle, County Waterford, acquired by Boyle and turned from a fortress into a stately home