The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace

by Tim Pat Coogan

London regarded the Protestant settlers in Ireland not merely as members of the favoured Church but as bulwarks of the Crown. For example, during the 1770s forces raised amongst northern Protestants were used to put down Catholic peasant agitation in the south. Against this backdrop, in 1762 the English Government intervened to abort a scheme, promoted by a Colonel Alexander McNutt, to populate Nova Scotia with Ulster Protestants. Hardy, self-reliant, and, unlike their dispossessed Catholic counterparts, generally possessed of a trade, money, and a woman kinswoman, be it sister or spouse, the Ulster planters were ideally suitable for dealing with the challenges of Canada’s lonely opportunities. Accordingly the scheme was at first given official backing, but on further investigation a government committee vetoed it in fright at the prospect that it might lead to ‘depopulation of Protestant communities in Ireland’.5 It is idle, but nevertheless beguiling, to speculate that, had it not done so, there might be no ‘Ulster Troubles’ today.