ABSTRACT
By 15 May 1610 most if not all the Scottish undertakers had been chosen and their names forwarded to Dublin. In the first place, special administrative machinery had to be set up for the issuing of the patents to the lands concerned. This process was only begun at the end of April when a commission was formed in England to draw up these documents. Quite apart from the business of securing patents, another cause of delay was the necessity of recruiting men to settle. From Cavan, the commissioners passed on to Devenish, in Fermanagh, and it was that they met the first Scottish undertakers to cross to Ireland. The second Scottish precinct in Donegal had a more favourable location. Portlough, a precinct which occupied the northern part of the barony of Raphoe, lay between the rivers Foyle and Swilly, being bounded in the north by the barony of Inishowen.
