The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal 1966–1995 and the Search for Peace

by Tim Pat Coogan

One of the ironies of history is that Salisbury’s initiative on behalf of Anglo-Norman imperialism was given its final successful impetus by an Irishman, Diarmuid MacMurchada, King of Leinster, who invited the help of Henry II in putting down his local enemies. After much parleying and delay a party of Norman knights and their followers arrived on the Wexford coast in 1169, capturing the major cites in the area, Waterford and Wexford, and eventually gaining control of Dublin. In return for his support of MacMurchada, the Norman knight Richard FitzGilbert – or Strongbow, as he is better remembered in Ireland – was given MacMurchada’s daughter, Aoife, in marriage and succeeded him as King of Leinster. MacMurchada to this day is execrated by some in Ireland for thus initiating both the ‘eight hundred years of British oppression’