​WHAT SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS LED TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT?

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Fig. 1. A map highlighting the historical 4 provinces of Ireland and modern motorways and major urban centers. Note the historic province of Ulster, the Grey and Yellow and the post modern day province of Northern Ireland. Post partition Ulster with a Protestant majority remained part of the UK.
What: To understand the causes of the social and economic factors that led to the development of an independence movement in Ireland.
How: Through the study of primary documents and modern geographical mapping.
Why: Social and Economic divisions were at the center of the Irish move to independence, these tended to lead ethno-national ideologies, see for example the make-up of Wolfe Tone's United Irishmen and the rebellion of 1798.

primary sources on the plantation of ireland in the 16th and 17th Centuries

Throughout the 16th century, English monarchs struggled to control Ireland by imposing English language, English customs and the Protestant faith. Part of this policy consisted of 'planting' English farmers, merchants and craftsman in Ireland by giving them land and incentives to settle there.
Sources from this period tend to show extremes of view, on the one hand portraying the Irish as uncivilized and rebellious savages who needed to be subdued and on the other claiming that the incomers were savage and brutal conquerors who stole the land.
Here you can explore a variety of sources - produced by both sides. Many of the sources contain images or words which were intended to be used to persuade people as such could be described as propaganda.
1. Investigation: How did the English policy of Plantation affect Ireland in the 16th and 17th centuries? Below is a list of possible views or claims about the time of Plantation. For each view, list which of the given sources support this view and whether you think the source is likely to be trustworthy. 
  • The English persecuted Catholic priests
  • The Irish were uncivilized
  • Plantation was cruel
  • Plantation brought the English and Irish together
  • The Irish hated the settlers who took their lands
  • Plantation changed the landscape
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Fig. 2 Source 1 of 6: Irish priests attacked
Source 3 of 6: An English view of Plantation"The lands of the Irish in Ulster were the most rude and unreformed part of Ireland, and the centre of the last great rebellion. They are now better organised and established, than any of the lands in the other provinces...
The organisation of those lands happened with the special providence of God, who cast out those wicked and ungrateful traitors, the enemies of the Reformation in Ireland...
His Majesty did not utterly exclude the natives out of this plantation ... but made a mixed plantation of British and Irish, that they might grow up together in one nation. The Irish were in some places transplanted from the woods and mountains into the plains and open countries, that being removed (like wild fruit trees) they might grow the milder, and bear the better and sweeter fruit.
When this plantation hath taken root, and been fixed and settled but a few years, with the favour and blessing of God . . . it will secure the peace of Ireland, assure it to the Crown of England for ever; and finally, make it a civil and a rich, a mighty, and a flourishing Kingdom."
Source 6 of 6: Massacre of Protestants
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Fig. 3. Source 2 of 6: Engraving of an Irish Feast
Source 4 of 6: The Munster Rebellion"Many of the Munster men broke into rebellion in October 1598, and joined themselves with Tyrone's forces, spoiled the country, burnt the villages, and pulled down the houses and castles of the English, against whom (especially the female sex) they committed all abominable outrages. . .
The Munster rebellion broke out like lightning, for in one month's space almost all the Irish were in rebellious arms, and the English were murdered, or stripped and banished. After they inflamed Munster with the fire of rebellion the Ulster forces returned back to Tyrone.
Tyrone found it easy to stir up revolt, because of the hatred which the Munster lords bear to those English settlers which possessed their ancestors' lands."
Source 5 of 6: Protestant plantation in Ireland 1599

I see... i think...i wonder...

what can modern geographical mapping techniques tell us about the 'planting of ireland' in the 16th and 17th CENTURIES? Resource links:

Using the Lancaster University project: Troubled Geographies: A Spatial History of Religion and Society in Ireland - answer the following questions in the table...

TOK: IS QUANTITIVE DATA IN history FREE FROM BIAS?