Strongbow invited to Ireland

May 1, 1169

Richard de Clare, known by his nickname Strongbow, landed in Ireland under contract to restore Diarmait of Leinster and was promised the king's daughter Aoife and the succession. His forces, better armored than anything Ireland had seen, crushed local armies. The marriage of Strongbow and Aoife at Waterford is often taken as the symbolic beginning of the Anglo-Norman conquest that would reshape Irish society for centuries.