This book traces the development, and subsequent implementation, of the policy of plantation from the mid-sixteenth through to the early seventeenth century focusing specifically on the North Channel context. By examining why plantation emerged as a policy within the north of Ireland, why it was implemented within the western Highlands and Isles of Scotland, and the repercussions of such a policy, the book will engage with debates about plantation as part of a «civilising» policy, and what that meant for communities and individuals that were brought together by the waters of the North Channel. Rather than view plantation as a tool of state formation, formulated at the centre and imposed onto the periphery, the author seeks to emphasise it was the result of ongoing dialogue between a number of individuals and communities and was as much a response of the centre to events on the periphery. Thus, while plantation in the northern province of Ireland came to be a pivotal part of James VI and I’s «British» project, the outworking of that policy was rather different.

Series edited by: Alison Cathcart, Patrick Gleeson