The Government had been toying with the idea of using Plantation as one of several means of introducing what might be regarded as an English-style order in Irish provincial society, from the mid-point in the 16th century I would say. But ‘Plantation’ as we understand it today - that is, the attempt to create a completely new society from the bottom-up - really only began to be experimented with since the 1580s with the Plantation in Munster - that was the first of the scientific Plantations, if you like, and the Plantation of Ulster was modelled to some degree and modified then to another degree on what had been attempted in Munster Earlier.

Q: - What did they learn from the mistakes that they made in Munster?

I would say the principal deficiency in the Munster Plantation as it worked out in practice, was that the entire land surface area of the province of Munster hadn’t been incorporated within a Plantation programme. They really only attempted to plant those particular parcels of land that had belonged to those who had been declared guilty of treason: whereas in the Ulster scheme, after The Flight of the Earls had taken place, the Government, through a fairly specious legal argument, contended that the entire land surface of six counties was in Government possession and, therefore, they could actually attempt to create a completely new society, incorporating admittedly some of the existing population but not necessarily allowing them to continue to be owners of land where they had been in possession previously.