In the early 1600s, some forty towns throughout Ireland received charters of incorporation, around half of which were located in Ulster. The granting of so many charters almost simultaneously was unprecedented in Ireland's history, and was in part a product of the Ulster Plantation.
This period of critical importance in Irish urbanisation was to alter the island's social and geographical landscape forever. Virtually all of the sites chosen had been important places, both in the ecclesiastical and Gaelic worlds, and the legacy of the incorporated towns and their charters remains with us to this day.
This booklet tells the Ulster dimension of that story.