So with the blessing of God, a Norman force landed not far from Wexford in 1169, followed by an invasion of Henry and his army two years later in Waterford. He was the first English king to leave a footprint on Irish soil, and would not be the last to pronounce the people ungovernable. He could have learned from the Romans, who called the island Hibernia and deemed it not worth the lost lives needed to force it into their empire.
