Charles James O'Donnell, born in Donegal and educated in Galway, provided in his will (1935) for a bequest to each of the Universities of Oxford, Wales, Edinburgh, National University of Ireland and Trinity College, to establish an annual lecture in each of the institutions - the lecture in the National University of Ireland to be on the history of Ireland since the time of Cromwell, with particular reference to the histories, since 1641, of old Irish families. The lecture series was established in 1957 and continued until 1986. Due to a lack of funds there was a gap of some years, but the NUI Senate was pleased to be able to revive the series, to be presented annually in each of the NUI Constituent Universities in rotation, as and from 1999. This, the 32nd lecture in the series, was delivered by Thomas O'Connor in the John Hume Building, NUI Maynooth in February 2005. He is a lecturer in European history in NUI Maynooth and the editor of The Irish in Europe, 1580-1815 (Dublin, 2001) and co-editor with Mary Ann Lyons of Irish Migrants in Europe after Kinsale, 1602-1820 (Dublin, 2003), Irish Communities in Early Modern Europe (Dublin, 2006) and The Ulster earls and Baroque Europe (Dublin, 2010).