Before the Nine Years' War (1594-1603), the Irish province of Ulster, in the north-east of the island, had been largely beyond the control of the English government. Land use was very longstanding and traditional. There were few towns, and many Gaelic farmers had a migrant lifestyle known as 'creaghting', based around the seasons and their cattle. After the rebellions of the 1590s against English influence, however, the rebel chieftains' lands were seized, and James VI and I made a concerted effort to Anglicize the region through a deliberate policy of 'plantation'. Landowners and tenant farmers from England and Scotland were brought to Ireland. There were also attempts to convert the local Catholic population to Protestantism, though this met with little success, in part due to the…
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