Page 143 - Demo

Chapter Five 143
on condition that he send his allies back from whence they had arrived and acknowledge the supremacy of the High-King, who, foolishly trusting the recreant Dermot’s word, dismissed his own army.
But Dermot had no intention of fulilling his side of the bargain, and in the spring of 1170, a second, albeit smaller detachment of invaders under the command of Maurice Fitzgerald landed near Waterford, and was quickly followed by Diramuid’s violation of the treaty. Now came the third detachment under Raymond Fitzwilliam de Carew; known as ‘Raymond le Gros’-‘Fat Raymond.’ This wily soldier deemed to have the ruthlessness indis- pensable to the times, also landed near Waterford, and by the use of clever strategy, it is told, won a signal victory over an attacking army. Accounts state that of the prisoners whom the Anglo-Normans took in this battle, they irst broke their limbs, before linging the victims from the clifs into the sea, giving Ireland, it is said, ‘a irst real taste of the conqueror’s cruel- ty which was henceforth to ill the centuries.’ It is recounted that Dermot, having succeeded so well and so quickly, now became illed with ambition to supplant Rory O Connor and become High-King himself. To achieve this aim he needed far more substantial invading forces, and also a stronger and more powerful leader than had heretofore arrived. So it was that he incessantly bombarded Strongbow with entreaties urging him to hurry over with all the soldiers at his disposal, and promising him further rich rewards.
Described as being “a tall and fair man, of pleasing appearance, with reddish hair and freckles, grey eyes, a feminine face, a weak voice, modest in his bearing, but sage in council, and the idol of his troops who remained steadfast in war and reliable in good fortune and bad alike,” Strongbow, a man who rightly or wrongly still commands the fascination of posterity, arrived in Ireland at the head of an army of 3,000 men, in August 1170. Dermot joined him near Waterford, a city they soon captured, slaying with indiscriminative savagery a large number of the inhabitants, in true Norman fashion, it is said. Reginald’s Tower which still stands, witnessed some of the bloodiest ighting.
A couple of days later, while the slaughter continued, the marriage of Strongbow and Dermot’s daughter Aoife was solemnised in the ruins of the smouldering city. A massive romanticised depiction of the union, painted by Daniel MacLise in 1854, now hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland-the painting is ive metres by three metres in size.