At Newtownstewart, in County Tyrone, the remains of a Plantation castle illustrate the relay between English and Scottish planters that characterised the colonisation of Ulster. Built by an Englishman, it passed to a Scot who gave it, along with his name, that of the town.
An English Plantation manor
The castle of Newtownstewart was built after the Flight of the Earls (1607) by Sir Robert Newcomen, an English planter, around 1615 (completed around 1619-1622). He raised it in an 'English manor' style: gabled façade, mullioned windows — a direct import of English domestic architecture into the land of Ulster. It is one of those Plantation castles the colonists built to assert their presence and secure their lands, in a freshly colonised country.
The Anglo-Scottish relay
The history of Newtownstewart illustrates the relay between English and Scottish planters in Tyrone. Only seven years after the castle's completion, Sir Robert Newcomen sold it to his Scottish son-in-law, Sir William Stewart — who then gave the town his own name: 'Newtownstewart' (Stewart's new town). This passage from an English colonist to a Scottish one, and the naming of the town after the latter, sums up the mingling of the colonising populations in Ulster: English and Scots lived side by side, allied by marriage, and passed lands and houses to one another. To see: the English-manor-style gabled façade, the mullioned windows, the remains in the town, the context of Newtownstewart.
Did you know?
The very name of Newtownstewart tells the story of its foundation: 'Stewart's new town'. Built by an English planter, the town took the name of the Scot who bought it — Sir William Stewart. In the Ulster of the Plantation, town names thus carved into the geography the identity of the colonists: Newtownstewart, Draperstown, Salterstown… so many place names that, still today, tell who came to colonise which land in the early seventeenth century.
Notes
Newtownstewart Castle lies at Newtownstewart, County Tyrone; remains in the town. Building dates slightly divergent according to sources (1615 vs 1619). Hours to check.
Quiz
- Who built Newtownstewart Castle around 1615?
- Sir Robert Newcomen, English planter
- An O'Neill chief
- The king of Spain
- To whom did he sell it?
- His Scottish son-in-law, Sir William Stewart
- The pope
- The queen
- Where does the town's name come from?
- The Scottish planter Sir William Stewart
- A Gaelic saint
- A battle