St Aiden’s Homeschool

Diarmaid Mac Murchadha

Aka
Diarmaid na nGall
Dermot of the Foreigners
A Biography

Presented by Donnette E Davis

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1126–1171
Diarmaid Mac
Murchadha (also known Predecessor: Enna MacMurrough
as Diarmaid na nGall,
"Dermot of the Successor: Domhnall Caomhánach Mac Murchada
Foreigners", "Diarmaid Date of Birth: 1110
Mac Murchadha"), Leinster,
anglicized as Dermot Place of Birth: Ireland
MacMurrough (died 1 Mór Uí Thuathail,
January 1171) was the Wives: Sadhbh Ní Fhaoláin,
King of Leinster, and is Derbhforghaill Ni Mhaol Seachlainn
often considered to
have been the most Buried: Ferns, County Wexford
notorious traitor in Irish Date of Death: 1171
history. Ousted as King Parents: Donnach MacMurrough and ?
of Leinster, he invited
King Henry II of England to assist him in regaining the throne. The subsequent
invasion led to Henry becoming Lord of Ireland himself, and marked the
beginning of eight centuries of English dominance.

Early Life and Family

Mac Murchadha was born in 1110, a son of Donnchadh, King of Leinster and
Dublin; he was a descendant of Brian Boru. His father was killed in battle in 1115
by Dublin Vikings and was buried, in Dublin, along with the body of a dog - this
was considered a huge insult.

Mac Murchada had two wives (as allowed under the Brehon Laws), the first of
whom, Mór Uí Thuathail, was mother of Aoife of Leinster and Conchobhar Mac
Murchadha. By Sadhbh of Uí Fhaoláin, he'd a daughter named Órlaith who
married Domhnall Mór, King of Munster. He had two legitimate sons, Domhnall
Caomhánach (died 1175) and Éanna Ceannsealach (blinded 1169).

King of Leinster

After the death of his older brother, Mac Murchadha unexpectedly became King
of Leinster. This was opposed by the then High King of Ireland, Toirdhealbhach
Mac Ruaidhrí Ua Conchobhair who feared (rightly so) that Mac Murchadha
would become a rival. King Toirdhealbhach sent one of his allied Kings, the
belligerent Tiernan O'Rourke (Irish Tighearnán Ua Ruairc) to conquer Leinster and
oust the young Mac Murchadha.

O'Rourke went on a brutal campaign slaughtering the livestock of Leinster and

thereby trying to starve the province's residents. Mac Murchadha was ousted
from his throne, but was able to regain it with the help of Leinster clans in 1133.
Afterwards followed two decades of an uneasy peace between Ua Conchobhair
and Diarmaid. In 1152 he even assisted the High King raid the land of O'Rourke
who had by then become a renegade. Mac Murchada also 'abducted'
O'Rourke's wife Dearbhforghaill along with all her furniture and goods, with the aid
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of Dearbhforghaill's brother, a future pretender to the kingship of Meath. It was
said that Dearbhforghaill wasn't exactly an unwilling prisoner and she remained in
Ferns with MacMurrough, in comfort, for a number of years.

After the death of the famous High King Brian Boru in 1014, Ireland was at almost
constant civil war for two centuries. After the fall of the O'Brien family (Brian Boru's
descendants) from the Irish throne, the various families which ruled Ireland's four
provinces were constantly fighting with one another for control of all of Ireland. At
that time Ireland was like a federal kingdom, with five provinces (Ulster, Leinster,
Munster and Connaught along with Meath, which was the seat of the High King)
each ruled by kings who were all supposed to be loyal to the High King of Ireland.

Exile and Return

In 1166, Ireland's new High King and Mac Murchadha's only ally Muircheartach Ua
Lochlainn had fallen, and a large coalition led by Tighearnán Ua Ruairc (Mac
Murchadha's arch enemy) marched on Leinster. Ua Ruairc and his allies took
Leinster with ease, and Mac Murchadha and his wife barely escaped with their
lives. Mac Murchadha fled to Wales and from there to England and France, in
order to find King Henry II and plead with him to be allowed recruit soldiers to
bring back to Ireland and reclaim his Kingship. (It has been claimed that King
Henry II had in his possession, the Papal Bull laudabiliter, which would entitle Henry
to come to Ireland in order to deal with the renegade Christians. However, this
papal bull is only mentioned by Gerard of Wales, and may have been fictitious.)
On returning to Wales, he sought the abode of Robert Fitzstephen, who helped
him organize a mercenary army of Norman and Welsh soldiers to retrieve his
kingship. Among them were Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, alias
Strongbow, who married Mac Murchadha's daughter, Aoife of Leinster, in 1170.

In his absence Ruaidhrí Ua Conchobhair (son of Mac Murchadha's former

enemy, High King Toirdhealbhach) had become the new High King of Ireland.
Mac Murchadha planned not only to retake Leinster, but to oust the Uí
Conchobhair clan and become the High King of Ireland himself. He quickly retook
Dublin, Ossory and the former Viking settlement of Waterford, and within a short
time had all of Leinster in his control again.

He then marched on Tara (then Ireland's capital) to oust Ruaidhrí. Mac

Murchadha gambled that Ruaidhrí wouldn't hurt the Leinster hostages which he'd
(including Mac Murchadha's eldest son, Conchobhar Mac Murchadha). However
Ua Ruairc forced his hand and they were all killed.

Diarmaid's army lost the battle. He sent word to Wales and pleaded with
Strongbow to come to Ireland as soon as possible. When Strongbow did arrive in
Wexford, along with his Welsh and Norman cavalry, took over both Waterford
and Wexford. They marched on Dublin. MacMurrough was devastated after the
death of his son, Domhnall, he retreated to Ferns and died a few months later.

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 Although in modern Irish history Diarmaid Mac Murchadha is often seen as a
traitor, his intention wasn't to aid an English invasion of Ireland, but rather to use
Henry's assistance to become the High King of Ireland himself. He had no way of
knowing Henry II's ambitions on Ireland. Gerald of Wales, a Cambro-Norman
historian who visited Ireland and whose uncles and cousins were prominent
soldiers in the army of Strongbow, said of Mac Murchadha: » "Now Dermot was a
man tall of stature and stout of frame; a soldier whose heart was in the fray, and
held valiant among his own nation. From often shouting his battle-cry his voice
had become hoarse. A man who liked better to be feared by all than loved by
any. One who would oppress his greater vassals, while he raised to high station
men of lowly birth. A tyrant to his own subjects, he was hated by strangers; his
hand was against every man, and every man's hand against him."

Death and Descendants

After the invasion the Normans conquered Ireland by playing one Irish family off
against another. Ua Conchobhair was soon ousted, first as High King and
eventually as King of Connaught. Attempting to regain his provincial kingdom, he
turned to the English as Mac Murchadha had before him. By 1171, England
directly controlled a small territory in Ireland surrounding the city of Dublin known
as "the Pale", and the city of Waterford, while the rest of Ireland was divided
between Norman and Welsh barons sent by the English, and the various Irish
Clans (like the Uí Conchobhair who retained Connaught and the Uí Néill who
retained most of Ulster).

Subsequently most of the ruling Norman families began to intermarry with the
Irish. Eventually they allied with Irish clans against England, adopted the Irish
language and as the English put it "became more Irish than the Irish themselves"
prompting a second English invasion centuries later.

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Acknowledgements, Thanks & Terms of Use

http://www.wikipedia.org
http://brian_boru.totallyexplained.com/

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