As soon as counties and provinces were conquered, the military and lordly pets of the various monarchs were given large grants of the lands stolen from the people.
O'Neil, O'Brien, Desmond, O'Donnell, O'Connor, Burke, Clanrickard and Tyrone disputed every inch of ground with Pellam, Mountjoy, Gray, Essex, Raleigh and Cromwell; and, although the original commanders and owners of the soil have been virtually banished or killed, their posterity has the proud satisfaction of knowing that more than a million of Englishmen and Scotchmen have been killed by the "Wild Irish," and the battle for liberty shall still go on till the Saxon robber relinquishes his blood sucking tentacles on the Emerald Isle.
Poet Spenser and Sir Walter Raleigh were rewarded by Queen Elizabeth with thousands of acres, confiscated from the great estate of the Earl of Desmond, who lived at the castle of Kilcolman, near the town of Doneraile.
Spenser paid for his stolen land by writing a dissertation on the way to conquer and kill off the Irish race, regarding them no more than the wild beasts of the forest. He also flattered Queen Bess by composing a lot of flattering verse, called the "Faerie Queen," and made her believe she was the beautiful, sweet, mild, chaste, angelic individual that had thrilled his imagination in the royal realms of dreamland.
What infernal lies political courtiers, religious ministers and even poets have told to flatter the vanity of governors, presidents, kings, queens, popes and emperors!
Yet in all the grand sentiments Shakspere evolved out of his volcanic brain, he never bent the knee to absolute vice, but pictured the horrors of royalty in its most devilish attitudes. His pen was never purchased against truth.
We remained at Kilcolman Castle with Spenser for about ten days riding and sporting, and then with an escort of soldiers, were piloted through the "Rebel" counties on to Dublin, where the head of O'Neil graced one of the "Red" walls of that unlucky city.
On our route from Cork to Dublin we beheld misery and ruin in every form, burned cabins, churches, monasteries and bridges, and starving women and children on the roadside, crouching under bushes, straw stacks and leaking sheds, with smouldering turf fires crackling on the ashes of despair!
We took shipping the next morning for Liverpool, as William was very anxious to get away from the land of funeral wails, where the cry of the "wake" over some dead peasant or defiant "Rebel" echoed on the air continually.
Where sorrow in her weeping form,
Shed tears in sunshine, and in storm,
While o'er the land, a reign of blood
Was running like a mountain flood!