NEWRYABBEY

Irish King Diarmait was a troublesome man from a troublesome family. His father had been a scoundrel, murdered by the Danish Vikings in Dublin and buried with the carcass of a dog to make a point.

After having to flee Ireland (perhaps banished), Diarmait first landed in Bristol; He chased down the Norman King of England Henry II [1154-89] & found him on the continent; and asked him for help. Before this he had all but lost his kingdom to his Irish (Gaelic) enemies, and he wanted it back. It would not be the Anglo-Saxons or the pure Normans who would provide it.

Henry was a Norman, with priorities on the continent, at this date in time he was not much interested in Irish affairs.   His advice to Diarmait was for him to recruit mercenaries, he also told him Wales was his best bet for recruits. There were Cambro-Normans there, the leaders were the spawn of various liaisons among the Welsh, amongst these Princess Nesta and various other Normans (including Henry himself). The fore mentioned had fallen out of favour with the King, and they had no affection for the Welsh themselves. However they had European allies in Wales (including the Flemish), and they had the inner knowledge regarding some of the Welsh (mostly archers) who might be convinced to join such a venture for bounty.

Again some of the fore mentioned had nothing to lose, and many were willing to at least investigate the opportunities offered them in Ireland by the persuasive Diarmait ], even if it meant fighting side-by-side with the Welsh for a time.

Robert fitzStephen, a Cambro-Norman Knight, whom the Irish King literally recruited from a dungeon, told his potential followers that Diarmait 'loves our race and is encouraging (us) to come to Ireland to settle (there) and (helping him) will give us permanent roots...'.
Diarmait even pledged his daughter, Eva/Aoife, in marriage to the much older Strongbow, a widower, to ensure that the alliance sustained.

point of interest:   Weis-Sheppard's Ancestral Roots, Seventh and later Editions, 1992-99 and Complete Peerage (CP) 10, p. 356, state that Eva/Aoife was the daughter of Diarmait, son of Donnchad Macmurchada and one of his wives, Mor, daughter of Muirchertach Ua Tuathail.

Without Strongbow's approval, the Cambro-Norman-Welsh brigade might well have remained in Wales. Without the off-hand agreement of a Norman (not Anglo) King, Diarmait may have simply faded from history.
Why would Strongbow have even entertained the idea? The Norman Conquest of England and part of Wales from 1066 onwards had brought with it the feudal system. All land belonged to the King...grants were the King's to withhold, give or withdraw.

Earlier, Cardiganshire had been held by Welsh Prince, Cadwgan ab Bleddyn, who refused to acknowledge any Norman King. Gilbert de Clare (a.k.a. Gilbert fitzRichard of Clare, the original Strongbow) was granted Cardiganshire, provided the Welsh could be brought under Norman control, as the Anglo-Saxons had been in England.

Gilbert, Strongbow's forebear, built a fortress of ring-work and bailey design opposite Llanbadarn near the mouth of the River Ystwyth on a ridge called Tan-y-Castell. This was later expanded to become Aberystwyth Castle, [Aber- mouth of the river -ystwyth Ystwyth], it gave him the power base he needed to at least try to pacify the Welsh.

Time had passed since 1066, but there was still a Norman dynasty in power in England and much of western Europe. Henry I died in 1135, and his nephew, Stephen de Blois (1135-54), seized the throne, by-passing Henry's daughter, Matilda, to whom Henry, against tradition, had attempted to grant succession .

Four years into Stephen's reign (in 1139), Matilda landed in England. In 1141, she captured Stephen at the battle of Lincoln, and reigned disastrously as queen for several years. Driven out by a popular uprising, Stephen was restored. In 1148, Matilda left England for the last time.

After his own son died, Stephen "recognized" Matilda's son, Henry Plantagenet as heir. Henry was fruit of the second (1129) of his mother's three marriages. His father was Geoffrey the Handsome, Count of Anjou, nicknamed "Plantagenet". In 1154, Stephen died and Henry II was crowned - not by virtue of what revisionist historians deem "recognition" by Stephen, but because in 1153, Henry had invaded England and forced Stephen to make him heir to the "English" throne. The family spat was settled by the Treaty of Westminster.
In 1158, Henry II decided to take tighter control of Wales, focusing on Pembroke[shire]. It had fallen back to the Welsh in the period between the two Henrys, and the Normans, their allies and the House of Clare still stood with Henry, no doubt a tenuous relationship.

Roger fitzRichard (grandson of Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare) had been displaced in 1164 by Welsh Lord, Rhys (Rhys ap Gruffud), this failure led to a falling out of favour by the de Clares with London and figured prominently in the Earl's 1167 decision to support "the mythical conquest of Ireland".Lets just call it Irish assult.

Strongbow would, according to his agreement with this renegade Irish King, and in contravention of Irish tradition, upon Diarmait's death, inherit the throne of Leinster. This did take place, as agreed, and there was a peaceful transition of power from Diarmait to Strongbow by treaty, through marriage, by way of inheritance. The irish didn't like this one bit. Neither did Henry II, & as said was King of England and who controled the best part of the continent

By 1171, Henry II, now held a wary eye on events in Ireland, he became concerned about what he saw as a growing threat to his own power. (De Clare at this stage had allready been pronounced King of Leinster, as agreed with Diarmait ). Henry decided the time had come to lay claim to Ireland himself.

Along with the wrath of the Pope who was vexed at the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas � Becket (1170) Henry ll was about to move, his intention's to mend former Ills with Rome & to bring Roman "religion" to Ireland!

Henry was as suggested the most powerful ruler in the western world at the time. His dominions included England, most of Wales, Normandy, Anjou, Gascony and other parts of France, also some of his barons had control of a province in Ireland. He was a strategic thinker and was not about to take a large contingent of Normans (or hyphenated Normans) to Ireland. They might just defect to Strongbow.

By 1171, he trusted some of the Anglo-Saxon military rank-and-file more than his own people (and certainly more than the Flemish). He could not afford to see an independent Norman state emerge, so in October he arrived in Ireland with a large force at Waterford, & moved quickly to Dublin. He then invited all the Irish Kings to meet with him. They all came, except Cenel nEoghain and Cenel Conaill, rulers of Ulster. The Irish princes, including the High King, all made submissions.

The meeting resulted in the Cambro-Norman barons being confirmed in their holdings, except that Meath was granted to Hugh de Lacy, as a counterweight to Strongbow. Later (1175), Henry even made a treaty with Irish High King, Rory O'Connor, that while Diarmait's allies would keep the lands they had, they would not expand.

The Angevin king, however, could not control his vassals, given their history of unruly expansion outside Normandy and elsewhere on the continent. Again, it must be said that the notion of their expanding unilaterally in Ireland is an exaggeration. The Irish, from the very beginning, were with them as often as against them in these adventures.

Case in point - in February 1177 John de Courcy, a Norman knight who had allready been with Henry in 1171, left Dublin with 22 mailed horsemen and 300 soldiers. They marched through Meath, north to the plain of Muirhevna, where Irish allies joined in.

De Courcy led his men into Ulster. At Down, capital of the kingdom of D�l Fiatach, local ruler, Rory MacDunleavy, over-king of Ulaidh, fled with his people to return a week later with a large army. A fierce battle was fought near the River Quoile, but de Courcy held Down. A larger Ulster army tried to oust the de Courcy and his Irish allies later in the year, but again they failed.

De Courcy eventually took the coastlands of Antrim and Down, built mottes and castles and virtually became an independent prince in eastern Ulster, after falling In and out of peace with the monastic settlements. Then in 1199, his luck ran out, he was ousted (NOT BY THE IRISH) but by another Norman, Hugh de Lacy, younger son of the Lord of Meath.

That same year (1199), Henry II granted Diarmait's Kingdom-- now Norman - not English -- Cork--to two other Cambro-Norman knights, Robert fitzStephen and Milo [Miles] de Cogan. The boundaries in modern terms included all of south Kerry, with the Dingle peninsula; Co. Cork; plus portions of south Limerick and west Waterford.

The grantees took seven cantreds, three to the east of Cork City for fitzStephen and four to the west for de Cogan. The remaining twenty four, the Irish "rented" from them. Monastic grants and other documents of the time prove that the grantees did hold lands east and west of the city, but ownership of the remainder was practically speaking "in name only"!

It was, therefore, Henry II, a Norman, [born March 25, 1133 in Le Mans, Sarthe, France; died July 8th, 1189 in Chinon, Indre-Et-Loire, Normandy], who gave the Cambro-Normans and their allies an "official", but subordinate, foothold in medieval Ireland....again by negotiation and agreement (treaty) with local leaders - civil and clerical. This was not done by way of invasion, but by invitation.

As Henry would have seen it, he had successfully made Ireland another Norman territory. He was Norman --- no hyphen --- the Anglo-Saxons were under the Norman heel, where he felt they belonged, and he was off to the continent, where he belonged with his own people.

Some people wonder how Henry could have managed the situation so well in 1171 - why did the Irish just go along? Truth be told - that most Irish simply did not care who was in charge - it made little difference in their day-to-day lives. Impositions upon them resulting from taxes, rents and the law would be much the same under any king....Norman, English, Irish or other.

They said good riddance to Henry; and went back to arguing with each other and the foreigners for years to come!   The fact that the Irish were as much or more to blame for the mess known as the "Anglo Invasion of Ireland" may explain why "invasion and oppression" became a justification of their own role.

Anglo-Saxon fixation with Empire may explain their complicity in this historical charade.

The history of Ireland in the Middle Ages is more complicated than the standard "natives against foreigners" myth might suggest. Much of what Diarmait's mercenaries and their local allies did to the Irish, while barbarous by modern standards, was no worse than the castrations, blindings and killings, even among relatives and other pretenders to any Irish throne, perpetrated prior to the arrival of the "outsiders." In the earlier battles and many of the later ones, the Irish, like their new allies, were infact on both sides.

There is a modern tendency to characterize the "Cambro-Normans" and their comrades in arms as oppressors of the Gaelic Irish. There were approx 180 Irish kingdoms in 1169, and they were conspiring and warring among themselves. They were a house divided. What happened to them was inevitable.

They bought and owned slaves (often British), as well as taking hostages in raids on England. Organized law and religion were in disarray, as was just about everything else. Diarmait himself secured his thrown over the corpses and pierced eyeballs of his rivals.

In fairnes, it should be acknowledged that the foreigners put at least some of this to rights.

The Cambro-Norman contingent (with a sizeable Welsh element), joined league with an Irish Army led by McMurrough and his son in 1169. There wasn't an Anglo-Saxon in sight. Thus, it bears repeating: There was no Anglo-Norman Invasion of Ireland in 1169.

There was an Irish Civil War into which Cambro-Normans and their allies (including the Welsh) - mercenaries all - were recruited to join with Diarmait's Irish army to fight against competing Irish forces.

Some of Diarmait's mercenaries stayed on after 1172 (as had been agreed), and they integrated to the point at which it later became a concern to England. Yet the invasion myth persists, despite the orderly transfer of power between Diarmait and Strongbow and the Treaty with Norman King, Henry II. These "outsiders" fought the Irish; they fought each other; and they found common cause with the Irish against the English over time.

Because of the feudal system of knight's fees, however, many spent considerable time abroad in service to the King or to protect their own holdings in England, Wales and on the Continent - not to mention their participation in the Crusades.

Grants, under the feudal system, were given with the proviso that the grantee could take the territory from the current occupants by force of arms or other strategies - political, economic, religious or through marriage.

Even then, things often did not go as planned. In Cork, for example, De Cogan was killed in 1182, leaving only a daughter, Margaret, who married three times, while fitzStephen left no "legitimate" heirs. Translation - no line of succession.

Thus, when King John took and occupied the throne [1199-1216], following the death of the (mostly absent) Crusading King, Richard I, the Lionheart [1189-99], he was determined to weaken the power of what he, by then, considered "the Irish" (one example may have been de Lacy, younger son of the Lord of Meath who had obviously "gone native" by overthrowing de Courcy in east Ulster (above).

John began by revoking the entire grant of the the kingdom of Cork for the Crown. This he shared among his own people...as was his right under medieval norms.

In 1200, he granted Eoghanacht Locha to Meyler fitzHenry to hold of the king 'in capite.' Seven years later Philip de Prendergast and Robert fitzMartin were granted lands east of Cork; David de Rupe (de la Roche/de Roch) was granted the cantred of Rosalithir; while Richard de Cogan (son of Milo's brother, Richard) was granted M�scraighe Mittaine, the present baronies of east and west Muskerry and Barretts. De Cogan and de Prendergast (with de Roch in arms) did advance their claims, but not without resort to military means.

For generations, Norman and Anglo-Saxon populations in England had a pragmatic relationship, as the Norse had earlier with the Franks on the continent. Normans were Kings of England, but they weren't English. French was the language used at Court for generations. This helped their allies no more than the English, Welsh or Irish.

Anglo-Saxons were ethnically distinct from the Anglo- and Cambro-Normans who were distinct from the Welsh, Normans, French, Flemish and Irish. And the English throne was, over time, in many hands other than the Anglo-Saxon - this is true today!

Anglo-Saxon hegemony over England is, in fact, another myth. It really only extended from 597-1066 A.D., following their "invasion" by invitation of abt 500 A.D. They themselves speak of the periods which followed 1066 in other terms: the Medieval Period, the Reformation and Restoration, the Age of Empire and the 20th Century. The Monarchy has also required categorization:

House of Wessex - (802-1016)
Danish Line - (1014-1042)
Wessex, Restored - (1042-1066
Norman Line - (1066-1154 - with Matilda squeezed in for several year beginning in 1141)
Plantagenet, Angevin Line - (1154-1399 - it seems a stretch to not regard the Plantagenets as Norman; they were at least continental...)
Plantagenet, Lancastrian Line- (1470-71 - with overlap at the end because of unrest))
Plantagenet, Yorkist Line - (1471-1483-85)
House of Tudor - (1485-1603) - here I, like most not British folk, I think, am prepared to make a differentiation in perception.)
House of Stuart - (1603 -1649)
The Commonwealth 1649-1659)
House of Stuart, Restored - (1660-1688)
House of Orange and Stuart - (1689-1702)
House of Stuart - (1702-14)
House of Brunswick, Hanover Line (Germanic) - (1714 -1901)
House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha - (1901-10)
House of Windsor - (1910-present - 2006)

Anglo Saxon, I think not. The Scots, Welsh and Irish may have expended a lot of negative emotional energy on the wrong target - England - perhaps correctly at times - but Anglo-Saxon or Anglo-Anything - is debatable and, quite possibly, they are not directly responsible for all of Ireland's "troubles".
Norman-Anglo distrust did not even begin to dissipate in England until well into the Hundred Years War beginning in 1337. During the time of Peter de la Roche, Bishop of Exeter, after his return from the Crusades, there was ill-will based on the Anglo-Saxon perception that too many of the plums of patronage were going to francophones from his home in Pictou.

Much later, the Anglicized-Norman aristocracy began to identify themselves as English, just as some (not all) of the Cambro-Normans and their continental allies would become "more Irish than the Irish", (Hibernicized), in Ireland.

Nevertheless, Maurice fitzGerald of the Geraldines, had it right (and it would seem to remain so - to a degree - today) when he complained shortly after his arrival in Ireland that:

No one will help our kind: 'for just as we are English as far as the Irish are concerned, likewise to the English, we are Irish; and the inhabitants of this island and the other assail us with an equal degree of hatred.''
Eight hundred years after the fact, many Irish (Gaelic Celts) have told me they still consider Diarmait's allies 'invaders", and many Welsh share the sentiment! Documented history stands little chance against opinion or belief, Things are what they are - not comforting notions these - but better faced and acknowledged than whispered in dark corners. So there it is - make of it what you will!