The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland

In the grim history of the persecutions inflicted by victorious nations on their defeated enemies, the Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland after the long warfare of the 1640s must rank high. By the Settlement Act of 1653, the English government seized three-quarters of all Ireland, to be parcelled out in lots to its unpaid soldiery, and every Irishman was banished beyond the Shannon.
This was a savage episode in Irish history. Commissioners were faced with an impossible task as they struggled to put a valuation on almost all the land and property in Ireland. The Irish suffered appalling hardships and humiliations and were forced to make the winter journey with their entire household and stock to an uncertain welcome in Connaught. And the Protestant settlers, even those lucky enough to retain their land, would all be dispossessed by the Restoration Settlement that followed nine years later.
First published in 1865, J.P. Prendergast's classic work, now reissued, makes extensive use of state documents and contemporary pamphlets to provide a fascinating account of this terrible pillage, the long-term effects of which are still being felt in Ireland today.