THE INVASION

OF IRELAND
Abramova Amalia
LONG STORY SHORT
The English conquered Ireland basically by accident, when the Irish King of
Leinster, who also wanted to be King of Dublin, hired some Normans to restore
him to the throne. As you can see, that did not go well and England established
its rule over Ireland which lasted for 750 years.
HOW DID IT START?

Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leister, claimed to be King of Dublin but was

unpopular there. So Rory O’Connor took advantage of that and sent his ally
Tighearnan O’Ruairc to go against MacMurrough. The King of Leister basically lost
his army in the woods (aka was unable to rally support because of the landscape)
and fled to Bristol by sea.
Then he ran to France to try to lure Henry II on his side but failed – Henry had
other problems, like quarrelling over his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas
Becket.
As we can see from the result of it all, MacMurrough did not stop there and found
other allies – the ambitious members of the Anglo-Norman minor nobility.
…AND JUST LIKE THAT, IT WAS OVER

Easily and smoothly, just like that, Dermot MacMurrough and his Norman forces
conquered Irish towns one by one. They did have some enemies (for instance, the
already mentioned Rory O’Connor who was by then High King and Mac Gilla
Patraic of Osraige, aka Strongbow) that rallied against them in 1169. However, in
1170, MacMurrough, reinforced by his most powerful Norman ally, Richard Fitz
Gilbert de Clare, crushed them.
MacMurrough and the Normans soon took Waterford, defeated and drove out
Askulv, the Viking lord of Dublin, and just like that, it was over.
AND WHEN IT’S OVER, HENRY II FINALLY
TAKES NOTICE
Henry II did not participate in the Invasion of Ireland even from afar, but being
the English King, he couldn’t jut stay put when he found out some of his vassals
had successfully conquered Ireland and now were in the middle of active
privatization of Irish land.
Under pretext of having the Pope’s old (from 1156) permission to invade Ireland,
Henry II lands at Waterford. Surely, his real intention was to gain control of the
lands and not let his vassals do that. He easily did that by making his own man,
Hugh de Lacy, constable of Dublin and placing some of his faithful men in key
towns (Limerick, Cork, etc.)
Henry II left, leaving de Lacy and Strongbow to take care of the land. Rory
O’Connor, only interested in power, I suppose, gave in to the English rule to be
named High King of the western part of Ireland.
THE END

Nobody paid attention to the treaty, so peace was never reached. When
Strongbow died, the English Crown got more involved. Then, Rory O’Connor died
and the English Crown got even more involved – actually, Henry II had his son
Prince John crowned King of all Ireland.
The colonization of Ireland continued, and the lands controlled by England
expanded, having spread over most of Connaught by 1235. Royal control became
stronger and the barons’ power shrunk. By 1300, the remaining Irish kings were
feudal tenants of English Barons and were ruling reduced domains.
THE ACTUAL END
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