Thanks John. There's no question that "The Highlander's farewell to bonny port more" and "The Strong Walls of Derry" are a bit corrupted. The leave takeing of a sweetheart gets a bare mention in them. Yours is probably the original from which the others were (loosely) derived. Do you have any idea of the date of it? I've added "Strong Walls of Derry" after "The Highlander's farewell to bonny port more" on my website and cross reference to other songs with overlapping verses. These have little connection to the one you give.

In Joseph Ritson's 'The Bishopric Garland: or Durham Minstrel' is "Sunderland for me", where the last verse goes:

Sunderland's a fine place, it shines where it stands,
And the more I look on it the more my heart warms;
And if I was there I would make myself free:
Every man to his mind, but Sunderland for me.

This verse seems to be rather commonplace. Except for place name this is practically the same as in "The Highlander's farewell to bonny port more" and "The Strong Walls of Derry". Many related songs seem to me to stem from "Shrowsbury for me", c 1665, in the Scarce Songs 1 file on my website and on the Bodley Ballads website. In Scarce Songs 1 on my website I've given some of these related songs, and pointed out others. "Bonny Paisley [or 'Udny'- 'Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection', VI, #1089] ]"/ "Boys of Kilkenny", "Come all you little streamers" [untitled American version given, and another cited], "Streams of Lovely Nancy" [latter also on Bodley Ballads website and traditional versions in JFSS].

Once one starts with some verses from one song as the basis for a new song, then adds other verses on, it becomes practically impossible to give any quantative indication of how one song is related to another, or trace any chronological developement. It often seems to be a 'tree' developement (branches), rather than a straight line developement.