The O'Moore and O'Connor clans, which occupied the area, had traditionally raided the English-ruled Pale around Dublin. The Lord Deputy of Ireland, the Earl of Sussex, ordered that they be dispossessed and replaced with an English settlement. However, the plantation was not a great success. The O'Moores and O'Connors retreated to the hills and bogs and fought a local insurgency against the settlement for much of the following 40 years. In 1578, the English finally subdued the displaced O'Moore clan by massacring most of their fine (or ruling families) at Mullaghmast in Laois, having invited them there for peace talks. Rory Oge O'More, the leader of rebellion in the area, was hunted down and killed later that year. The ongoing violence meant that the authorities had difficulty in attracting people to settle in their new plantation. Settlement ended up clustered around a series of military fortifications.Lennon pp. 169–170Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British 1580–1650, pp. 128–129
