Motives Of The Attacks
Above : Another Picture Of Diarmuid Macmurrough
Upon the death of Diarmuid, Strongbow at once assumed the title of King of Leinster, and created the great officials generally appointed by a feudal King. The whole character of the invasion was now changed. Up to this, it had been the effort of an Irish provincial king to regain his throne with the help of foreign adventurers. It was a claim with which many of the Irish chiefs must have nourished a more or less secret sympathy ; even those who opposed him must have regarded the contest as a purely personal one. But all now beheld a stranger declaring himself to be an Irish King in defiance of all their known principles of succession, and introducing methods and laws which were essentially opposed to all their conceptions of justice and government. The conflict of two hostile systems had begun.
The country rose against this sinister threat to its national life. Most of the clans of Laighin which had supported Mac Murrough fell away from Strongbow, and were led by ” Murchadh na n-Gaedheal.” O’Brien also declared against the foreigner. Mac Carthy of Desmond captured the garrison of Walerford, and Dublin was attacked, but without success, by its former King, Mac Torkill with a fleet from the Hebrides and Orkneys. Soon a large army was collected chiefly by the exertions of Laurence O’Toole, who traversed the country for the purpose. Under Rory O’Connor it encamped at Finglas near Dublin, while a fleet of the Gaelicised Norse from the isles, under the King of Man, lay in Dublin Bay. For two months the Normans lay besieged in the city, where they received the news that Wexford had been taken and Fitz-Stephen made a prisoner at his castle of Ferrycarrig. Strongbow was forced to treat for terms, and offered to hold Laighin under the Ard Ri, but the latter refused all terms except the departure of the Normans and the surrender of the cities of Dublin, Wexford and Waterford. In despair, the starving Normans made a sudden sortie. The Irish, expecting a surrender, and lulled into a false security, were unprepared and taken by surprise. O’Connor was nearly captured ; his army, destitute of binding qualities, dissolved into its component parts, and each unit again made its way back to its own territory (September, 1171).
Leaving Dublin in charge of De Cogan, Strongbow forced a passage to Wexford, fighting the indomitable O’Ryan on his march. The townspeople refused to surrender either the town or Fitz-Stephen, and the Normans were forced to move on to Waterford which they had succeeded in recovering. Next he made a raid on Osraidhe in alliance with the fickle O’Brien of Thomond, during which an act of treachery meditated by the allies towards Mac Giolla Patrick was foiled by the sturdy chivalry of a Norman knight—Maurice de Prendergast.
Strongbow now had to face a danger which he feared more than the hostility of the Irish. His assumption of the crown of ” Leinster “—as the Normans called it—was resented as much by the King of England as it was by the Irish. Henry II had, for a time, crushed the rebellious barons in England with great difficulty, and now he saw some of the most unruly of them erecting a new feudal Kingdom for themselves across the Irish Sea. Soon after Diarmuid’s death he ordered the return of his subjects in Ireland, and prohibited any ship from sailing to this country. Strongbow had sent Raymond Le Gros to appease him, but without avail. Now came a peremptory demand that Strongbow should present himself before the King. The earl crossed to England, and found Henry on the west coast with a large army prepared for Ireland. With much apparent reluctance on the part of the King, and with much humility—probably not more sincere— on the part of Strongbow, Henry at length consented to accept the Earl’s submission and the offer of all his possessions. ” Leinster ” was ve-granted to Strongbow to hold as the King’s vassal, but the towns and castles Henry reserved to the Crown.
Another motive which is said to have actuated Henry in his expedition to Ireland had no connection with this country. This arose from the murder of Thomas a’ Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was slain on the steps of the high altar of his Cathedral by four Norman knights, December, 1170. The murderers were of Henry’s household, and the King was charged with having instigated the crime. The Pope threatened to excommunicate him, and it is said that in order to avoid the Legates carrying out the sentence, Henry passed over to Ireland. But his ambitions and his jealousy of the barons were sufficient reasons for his visit.