Turning a world upside down: The metamorphosis of property, settlement and society in the city of Cork during the 1640s and 1650s

Abstract

The so-called 'general crisis' of the middle of the seventeenth century affected many areas throughout Europe and proved to be one of the most turbulent periods in its historical geography. This paper seeks to investigate how Cork was transformed radically by the political upheavals of the 1640s and 1650s. In exploring the geography of this trauma, it will be shown how large-scale territorial reorganisation of ethnic groups occurred in the city as a result of the expulsion of the Catholic and Irish inhabitants in 1644 (and on a number of occasions afterwards), and their replacement by New English Protestant settlers. In spite of the fact that King Charles II was restored to the English throne in 1660, the walled city area continued to remain a space of exclusion for most of the old Catholic inhabitants.