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Diarmuid MacmorroughDiarmuid Mac Murchadha, anglicized as Dermot MacMurrough (died January 1, 1171), is considered the most noted traitor of Irish history, also commonly known as Diarmuid na nGall (Dermot of the foreigners) was the King of the eastern Irish province of Leinster who invited King Henry II of England to invade Ireland to assist him in regaining his throne of Leinster and taking the throne of all Ireland, however, in the end, King Henry became the "Lord" (ruler) of Ireland. Early Life amd Family MacMorrough was born around 1100, a son of Donnchad, King of Leinster and Dublin; he was a descendant of Brian Boru. His father was killed in battle in 1115. MacMorrough had many wives and concubines, the first of whom, Mor O'Toole, was mother of Aoife of Leinster and Conchobar Mac Murchada. By Sadb of U Faelin, he had a daughter named Orlaith who married Domnall Mor, King of Munster. He had two illegitimate sons, Domnall Cemnach (died 1175) and nna Cennselach (blinded 1169). King of Lenister After the death of his older brother, MacMorrough was unexpectedly crowned King of Leinster, this was opposed by the then High King of Ireland, Turloch O'Connor who feared rightly so that MacMorrough would become a rival. King Turloch sent one of his allied cheiftains, Teirnan O'Rourke (a man who lived for battles) to conquer Leinster and oust the young MacMorrough. O'Rourke went on a brutal campaign slaughtering the livestock of Leinster and thereby trying to starve the province's residents. MacMorrough 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 the High King Turloch O'Connor and King Dermot. In 1152 he even assisted the High King raid the land of Teirnan O'Rourke who had by then become a renegade. MacMorrough also abducted O'Rourke's wife Dervorgilla along with all her furniture and goods, with the aid of Dervorgilla's brother, the king of Meath. 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 where constantly fighting with one another for control of all of Ireland. At that time Ireland was like a federal kingdom, with four provinces (Ulster, Leinster, Munster and Connaught) each ruled by Kings who were all supposed to be loyal to the High King of Ireland. Exile, Return and Death In 1166, Ireland's new High King and MacMorrough's only ally Muirchertach O'Lochlainn had fallen, and a large coalition led by Teirnan O'Rourke (now MacMorrough's arch enemy) marched on Leinster. O'Rourke and his allies took Leinster with ease, and MacMorrough and his wife were barely able to escape with their lives. He escaped to England where he formed an alliance with King Henry II who helped him organize a mercenary army of Norman and Welsh soldiers to invade Ireland. Among them were Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, alias Strongbow, who married MacMorrough's daughter, Aoife of Leinster, in 1170. In his absence Rauri O'Connor (son of MacMorrough's former enemy, High King Turloch) had become the new High King of Ireland. MacMorrough planned not only to retake Leinster, but to oust the O'Connor clan and become the High King of Ireland himself. He quickly retook Dublin, Ossary 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 city) to oust Rauri O'Connor, MacMorrough gambled that King Rauri would not hurt the Leinster hostages which he had (including MacMorrough's eldest son, Conchobar Mac Murchada), however O'Rourke forced his hand and they were all killed. Dermot's army lost the battle and the Norman and Welsh mercenaries whom he had hired soon aided an invasion by England's King Henry II in 1169. MacMorrough lost his will to fight after his son's death, retreated to Ferns and died a few months later. In Irish history today Diarmuid MacMorrough is written as being a traitor, however technically his intention was never to aid an English invasion of Ireland, but to become the High King of Ireland himself with the help of the English King, he had no way of knowing Henry II's ambitions on Ireland. Gerald of Wales, an Anglo-Welsh historian who visited Ireland and who's uncles and cousins were prominent soldiers in the army of Strongbow, said of Dermot: - "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 Afterwards the Normans conquered Ireland by playing one Irish family off against another, Rauri O'Connor was soon ousted as High King and eventually as King of Connaught and therefore to regain his provincial kingdom like MacMorrough turned to the English. By 1171, England controlled a small territory in Ireland surrounding the city of Dublin known as "the Pale", while the rest of Ireland became divided between Norman and Welsh barons sent by the English, and the various Irish Clans (like the O'Connors who held onto Connaught and the O'Niells who held onto Ulster). However eventually most of the ruling Norman families began intermarriages with the Irish, 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. See also Kings of Lenister Sources - "Annals of the Four Masters", ed. J. O'Donovan; 1990 edition.
- "Expungntio Hibernica", by Geraldus Cambrensis. Martin & Moody, editors.
- "Irish Kings and High Kings", Francis J. Byrne, 1973.
- "The Norman Invasion of Ireland", by Richard Roache, 1998.
- "War, Politics and the Irish of Lenister 1156-1606", Emmett O'Bryne, 2004.
- Gerald of Wales
Source for Genealogy - Ui Cheinnselaig Kings of Laigin, "Irish Kings and High Kings" by Francis J. Byrne, page 290, Dublin, 1973.
- The MacMurrough-Kavanagh kings of Lenister, "War, Politics and the Irish of Lenister", Emmett O'Bryne, Dublin, 2004, Outline Genealogys I, Ia, Ib,, pages 247-249.
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