The 'undertakers' granted land in the Plantation of Ulster were required to occasionally muster their Protestant tenants for inspection by the Government-appointed Muster Master General who recorded the names, the ages and the types of arms born by the tenants. All Protestant males between the ages of 16 and 60 were liable to service in the militia. Only copies of the militia records survive: they list the undertakers, and sometimes divide the lists of tenants by parish or by barony.

Faced by the possible rebellion in the late eighteenth century, the Government raised a mainly Protestant force, the yeomanry, which it paid for and equipped. The yeomanry were expected to drill two days a week, and could be called out to supress public disorders and to assist the regular army in the event of invasion or insurrection.