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.

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.