Such was Oliver Cromwell's dire dictate to Catholic landowners during the Cromwellian wars in Ireland 1641-1653, after which 90% of all land-ownership was transferred, at the point of a sword, on pain of death, from Irish and Anglo-Norman, mainly Catholic ownership, to English Soldier/Dissenter/Opportunist, mainly Protestant ownership. Dispossessed families from all over conquered Ireland, many previously wealthy and important, found themselves forced as ethniclly-cleansed refugees, into the margins of Connacht, mainly Clare, Galway and Mayo, onto land that was at best marginal, hillsides and bogs. And so began the enforced impoverishment of the last great civilisation of Europe, an impoverishment that peaked with the deliberate dispossession of the Catholic landed class after the Treaty of Limerick in 1692, proscription against the practice of the Catholic religion, the outlawing of the Irish Language and Culture and the emasculation of the Irish as a people.
However, even after a further 200 years of enslavement and colonisation, the subjugation of the once proud Irish people was still incomplete.Despite all their hardships, failed rebellions, evictions, deportations, forced emigration, discrimination and racism, despite all that, the Irish continued to thrive, so that by 1839, there were 8 million of us, impoverished and demeaned, yes, but proud and stoic too. The deliberate anti-Irish policies of successive English regimes culminated with the willful genocide that was 'The Great Hunger'. A heretofore unknown potato blight devastated the potato crop for over a decade, depriving this large population of their staple food. Sky-rocketing corn prices, mass evictions and ten years of famine in Ireland in the 1840's and 1850's, resulted in 1.5 million people dead and 2.5 million emigrated, in particular from the over-crowded, western wetlands of Connacht. Picturesque the land here is, but arable it is not.Most families subsisted on holdings of less than 5 acres in County Galway, with an artificially crowded density of over 500 people per square mile in some areas, totally unsustainable when one considers that they could only grow potatoes on the land, no cereal and had few animals. What animals they had, a pig and maybe a few sheep and rough cattle were kept to pay the rents on their small-holdings. Rack-rents were exorbitant and if the tenant farmer made any improvements he was punished for his industry by having to pay a higher rent the following year. It was a dire, precarious lifestyle, one that came crashing down when the potato crop failed.
Yet life continued. People continued to live on the land, get married, have children, many still emigrated. There was a pride in being a Connacht person. That pride is always stirring just below the surface, a kind of spartan and indomitable spirit. Today Connacht still has the largest rural population and the poorest land in ireland but industry is thriving and tourism is particularly healthy, mainly because of the stark and beautiful landscape. Perhaps Cromwell did us a favour after all. But it was a high price to pay, no doubt about that.
For more stories like this, check out http://www.galwaywalks.com, or on Facebook see 'Walking Tours of Galway', or come along on one of my daily 'Galway Walks', 'Galway's Horrible History Tours', or 'The Fireside Tour of Galway'. Delighted to show you around!
Brian
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