Page 137 - Demo
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Chapter Five 137
mains to be said of him later in the chapter.
According to folk history, the man directly responsible, or blamed, for the coming of the
Anglo-Normans to Ireland was Diarmuid or Dermot Mac Murrough Kavanagh, the King of Leinster. Gerald of Wales, the Cambro-Norman historian who visited Ireland in 1185 and whose uncles and cousins were prominent Norman Knights left the following character sketch of Dermot:
“This Dermot was a man of tall stature and large frame, warlike and daring among his nation, and of hoarse voice by reason of his frequent and continuous shouting in battle. He desired to be feared rather than be loved; he oppressed the noble, and elevated the lowly; he was the enemy of his countrymen; he was hated by strangers. The hand of all men was against him, and his hand was against all.”
Dermot Mac Murrough Kavanagh
Remembered scathingly in Irish history as “Diarmuid na nGall”-Dermot of the Foreign- ers, “Headstrong, unworthy, brutal, vindictive, and notoriously untrustworthy,” are just some of the adjectives used to describe this man, who, according to two scribes of the time,
