Governmental opposition
notwithstanding emigration from Scotland to Ireland appears to have
continued steadily, and after the Revolution of 1688 there seems to
have been a further increase. Archbishop Synge estimated that by 1715
not less than 50,000 Scottish families had settled in Ulster during
these twenty-seven years. It should be also mentioned that "before the
Ulster plantation began there was already a considerable Scottish
occupation of the region nearest to Scotland. These Scottish
settlements were confined to counties Down and Antrim, which were not
included in the scheme of the plantation. Their existence facilitated
Scottish emigration to the plantation and they were influential in
giving the plantation the Scottish character which it promptly
acquired. Although planned to be in the main an English settlement,
with one whole county turned over to the city of London alone, it soon
became in the main a Scottish settlement."
The Scots were not long settled in Ulster before misfortune and
persecution began to harass them. The Irish rebellion of 1641, said by
some to have been an outbreak directed against the Scottish and
English settlers, regarded by the native Irish as intruders and
usurpers, caused them much suffering; and Harrison says that for
"several years afterward 12,000 emigrants annually left Ulster for the
American plantations." The Revolution of 1688 was also long and bloody
in Ireland and the sufferings of the settlers reached a climax in the
siege of Londonderry (April to August, 1688).
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