Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Imt Wtillim SBra 0! An old Song Of an old worshipful gentleman who had a greate estate,; ' That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate, t And an old Porter to relieve the poor at his gate, Like an old Courtier of the Queen's, And the Queen's old Courtier. Old Song. Some time after the quenching of the great Rebellion in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, more than half a million of acres in the north of Ireland were at the disposal of the English Crown. Part of this territory had been the property of the O'Niells, and the numerous branches of that great and ancient family, and part of the O'Donells, who held princely pre-eminence in Tyrconnell, or Donegal. After the later insurrection of Sir Cahir O'Dogherty, another chief of Donegal, and its suppression in the year 1608, the whole county fell to the King, under the law of forfeiture or escheat. At the same time, five other northern counties suffered a like doom:—namely, Tyrone, the Principality of O'Neill,—Derry, O'Cahan's county,—Fermanagh, Maguire's county,—Cavan, O'Reilly's county,—and Armagh, the property of the Clanbrassil O'Neills, and theO'Hanlons; these chiefs and their followers were put under attaint, and their lands forfeited: hence arose, in 1610, the Plantation of Ulster with English and Scotch settlers, who were generally soldiers of fortune, professional adventurers, or cadets of good families. Many of them found their way into Donegal, and these may be distinguished into two kinds, viz., those who arrived on the suppression of O'Donell's rebellion at the end of Elizabeth's reign; and those who " settled " under James T. in 1610; the former were almost all of English descent, whereas the latter were Scotch. In Donegal the chief families of the former were the Gores, now Earls of Arran, the Brookes, n...