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Rh ascribed to these droggrel rhymes, (which were written by the author of the "Irish Hudibras,") may enable the reader to form an idea of the influence which our Jacobite songs must have had on the people of Ireland. Clothed in the language of the Country, which was always regarded and still is cherished with national enthusiasm, and addressed to the religious and political feelings of the multitude, these songs helped, in no small degree, to counteract the effects even of the penal laws. They were transmitted from sire to son, and imprinted on the memory with nearly the same degree of reverence as the doctrines of Christianity. Hence the Catholics and Protestants were as much separated and prejudiced against each other in Ireland, as were the Israelites and Egyptians in Egypt, under the rule of Pharoah.

The present song, which promised the expulsion of the sassanagh Shane Bui, was, for that reason, a general favourite. It is said to have been composed by Ellen Quilty, a fair Munster Lady, but this was probably a nom-de-guerre, assumed by some bard to avoid detection.

Josephus, in the seventh book of the Jewish war, relates, that after the profanation of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans, the voices of Guardian Angels were heard in the dead of the night, crying out through its inmost recesses, Μεταβαινωμεν Εντευθεν "let us depart hence."—So, in the seventeenth century, when Ireland was subdued, more by clerical cabal and treachery, than by the arms of Cromwell, a similar cry was heard throughout the devoted land, from the brave, betrayed, and deserted Irish leaders, who until then had been the guardian spirits of the country. One of these was Colonel John O'Dwyer, a distinguished officer who commanded in the Counties of Waterford and Tipperary, in 1651, and soon after