EMIGRATION FROM NEW ENGLAND TO IRELAND.
From Prendergast’s Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland.
Prendergast’s Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland says: “Ireland was now like an empty hive, prepared to receive its new swarm. One of the earliest efforts of the government towards replanting the parts reserved to themselves was to turn towards the lately expatriated English in America. In the early part of the year 1651, when the country, by their own description to the Council of State, was a scene of unparalleled waste and ruin, the Commissioners for Ireland affectionately urged Mr. Harrison, then a minister of the Gospel in New England, to come over to Ireland, which he would find experimentally was a comfortable seed plot (so they said) for his labours.
“On his return to New England, it was hoped he might encourage those whose hearts the Lord should stir up to look back again towards their native country, to return and plant in Ireland. There they should have freedom of worship, and the (mundane) advantages of convenient lands, fit for husbandry, in healthful air, near to maritime towns or secure places, with such encouragement from the state as should demonstrate that it was their chief care to plant Ireland with a godly seed and generation.
“Mr. Harrison was unable to come; but some movement appears to have been made towards a plantation from America, as proposals were received in January, 1655, for the planting of the town of Sligo and lands thereabouts, with families from New England; and lands on the Mile line, together with the two little islands called Oyster Island and Coney Island (containing 200 acres), were leased for one year, from 10th of April, 1655, for the use of such English families as should come from New England in America, in order to their transplantation.
“In 1656 several families, arriving from New England at Limerick, had the excise of tobacco brought with them for the use of themselves and families remitted; and other families in May and July of that year, who had come over from New England to plant, were received as tenants of state lands near Garristown, in the county of Dublin, about fifteen miles north of the capital.”