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- Diarmait Mac Murchada (Modern Irish: Diarmaid Mac Murchadha), anglicised as Dermot MacMurrough, Dermod MacMurrough, or Dermot MacMorrogh (c. 1110 – c. 1 May 1171), was a King of Leinster in Ireland. In 1167, he was deposed by the high king of Ireland – Ruaidri Ua Conchobair (Rory O'Connor). The grounds for the deposition were that Mac Murchada had, in 1152, abducted Derbforgaill, the wife of the king of Breifne, Tiernan O'Rourke (Irish: Tighearnán Ua Ruairc). To recover his kingdom, Mac Murchada solicited help from King Henry II of England. His issue unresolved, he gained the military support of the Earl of Pembroke (nicknamed "Strongbow"). At that time, Strongbow was in opposition to Henry II due to his support for Stephen, King of England against Henry's mother in The Anarchy. In exchange for his aid, Strongbow was promised in marriage to Mac Murchada's daughter Aoife with the right to succeed to the Kingship of Leinster. Henry II then mounted a larger second invasion in 1171 to ensure his control over Strongbow, resulting in the Norman Lordship of Ireland. Mac Murchada was later known as Diarmait na nGall (Irish for "Diarmait of the Foreigners"). He was seen in Irish history as the king that invited the first ever wave of English settlers, who were planted by the Norman conquest. Another outcome of the invasion was for the very first time the indigenous Celtic Christian Church in Ireland would come under the jurisdiction of the Holy See through a bull issued to the Normans by the then Pope Adrian IV.
Early life and family
Diarmait was born around 1110, a son of Donnchad mac Murchada, King of Leinster and Dublin. His father's paternal grandmother, Derbforgaill, was a daughter of Donnchad, King of Munster and thus a granddaughter of Brian Boru. In 1115 his father attacked Domnall Gerrlámhach, King of Dublin, but died in the ensuing battle. The citizens of Dublin buried him with the carcass of a dog, considered to be a huge insult.
He had two wives (as allowed under the Brehon Laws), the first of whom, Sadhbh Ní Faeláin, was mother of
1. a daughter named Órlaith who married Domnall Mór, King of Munster.
His second wife, Mór ingen Muirchertaig, was mother of
1. Aoife / Eva of Leinster and
2. his youngest son Conchobar Mac Murchada.
He also had two other sons,
3. Domhnall Caomhánach mac Murchada and
4. Énna Cennselach mac Murchada (blinded 1169).
King of Leinster
After the death of his older brother, Énna Mac Murchada, Diarmait unexpectedly became King of Leinster. This was opposed by the then High King of Ireland, Toirdelbach Ua Conchobair (Turlough O'Conor) who feared (rightly) that Mac Murchada would become a rival. Toirdelbach sent one of his allied Kings, Tigernán Ua Ruairc (Tiernan O'Rourke) to conquer Leinster and oust the young Mac Murchada. Ua Ruairc went on a brutal campaign slaughtering the livestock of Leinster and thereby trying to starve the province's residents. Mac Murchada was ousted from his throne, but was able to regain it with the help of Leinster clans in 1132. Afterwards followed two decades of an uneasy peace between Ua Conchobair and Diarmait. In 1152 he even assisted the High King to raid the land of Ua Ruairc who had by then become a renegade.
Mac Murchada also is said to have abducted Ua Ruairc's wife Derbforgaill (English: Dervorgilla) along with all her furniture and goods, with the aid of Derbforgaill's brother, a future pretender to the kingship of Meath. Other sources say that Derbforgaill was not an unwilling prisoner and that she remained in Ferns with Mac Murchada in comfort for a number of years. Her advanced age indicates that she may have been a refugee or a hostage; in any case she was under his protection. Whatever the reality, the "abduction" was given as a further reason or excuse for enmity between the two kings.
Church builder
As king of Leinster, in 1140–70 Diarmait commissioned Irish Romanesque churches and abbeys at:
- Baltinglass – a Cistercian abbey (1148)
- Glendalough
- Ferns (his capital – St Mary's Abbey Augustinian Order)
- Killeshin
He sponsored convents (nunneries) at Dublin (St Mary's, 1146), and in c.1151 two more at Aghade, County Carlow and at Kilculliheen near Waterford city. The abbey of St. Mary Del Hogge in Dublin was named after the Hoggen Green or Haugr meaning gravesite in old Norse. This site later became 'College Green' after the Reformation and the establishment of Trinity College. It's said that in the late 1600s that Viking graves were still to be seen at Hoggen Green.
He also sponsored the successful career of churchman St Lawrence O'Toole (Lorcan Ua Tuathail). He married O'Toole's half-sister Mor in 1153 and presided at the synod of Clane in 1161 when O'Toole was installed as archbishop of Dublin.
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Mac Murchada was devastated after the death of his youngest son, Conchobar, retreated to Ferns and died a few months later.
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Gerald of Wales, a Cambro-English cleric who visited Ireland in 1185 and whose uncles and cousins were prominent soldiers in the army of Strongbow, repeated their opinions of Mac Murchada:
"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
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Diarmait died about 1 May 1171 and was buried in Ferns Cathedral, where his grave can be seen in the outside graveyard.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diarmaid_mac_Murchadha
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1110 - 1171 (61 years)
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