Ulster Settlers database

As is the case for most early modern populations, biographical information on Ulster Settlers is partial, incomplete and, from a data viewpoint, unstructured. This complicates research and can limit the range and ambition of research questions. The Ulster Settlers Database is a digital humanities project that responds to the challenges involved in working with incomplete biographical data. It does this by modelling existing data into life events and then digitally linking all these related events to reconstruct a searchable prosopography or biographical map of the entire settler cohort.

The project uses historical data relating to the English and Scottish men and women who settled in the six escheated counties of Ulster in the period, c.1609-1641. In the first phase, we have drawn on some of the key sources for the study of the Ulster plantation: grants of forfeited land issued to grantees, military muster lists, surviving court records and the secondary literature on the plantation.

Future plans include the inclusion of information from other archival collections include the 1641 Depositions, additional court records, family papers and data relating to land transfers and sales in the course of the seventeenth century.

The initial phase of the project was funded by the Royal Irish Academy through a Hunter Foundation research grant. Beginning in early 2022, the project was co-hosted by the Institute of Irish Studies at Queens University Belfast and Maynooth University’s Arts and Humanities Institute.

The Royal Irish Academy and the project team are very grateful to Bob’s daughter, Laura Houghton-Hunter for her continued interest in her father’s research and for her sponsorship of the database project.

The database is available at: https://ulster-settlers.clericus.ie/

Image: 'The Plat of the city of Londonderrie', 1622 by Thomas Raven. Available from: Public Record Office Northern Ireland