course of Irish History the native Irish were disposessed and driven from their lands on Ireland's rich central plains and lush lowlands. They were pushed westwards towards a rocky, barren and infertile seaboard. It is said that Cromwell's soldiers offered the fleeing Irish peasant farmers a stark choice - "To Hell or to Connacht?" Thousands of acres of some of the most granted to a new landlord class. Independence a native Irish government sought to redress this centuries-old imbalance and in the 1930's the vast estates of the former and mostly absentee landlords were divided and re- distributed to farmers living on uneconomic holdings. |