Plandáil 1606 - 1640: Settlement to Covenant

The three-part series Plandáil was produced in 2011 for BBC Northern Ireland, backed by the Irish Language Broadcast Fund, and was presented by Neil Martin. It is one of the best televisual accounts of the Scots' arrival in Ulster in the early 1600s that I have seen in recent years  - and importantly, it explains the differences between what Hamilton & Montgomery did in east Ulster, in contrast to how events unfolded in west Ulster.

I have been invited to give a talk next Wednesday evening at the AGM of the Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, on the subject of Rev James Hamilton of Ballywalter (1600-1666), one of the first ministers to come across. One of the events that Hamilton is renowned for was a public debate with the Bishops in Belfast which was dramatised in Plandáil - you can see at around 29 minutes in to the clip below.



Hamilton's story is one which has interested me for many years, given that he was the first minister in the area where I live, and that - unlike his contemporaries Robert Blair, John Livingstone and Robert Cunningham, nothing has been written about him. The talk will be general, not drilling down into the obscure details, but I hope it will be interesting to the audience. I need to get the full version published and out of my system!