For the next year, 1170, we find this record:  “Robert Mac Stepni and Ricard Mac Gillebert—­Iarl Strangbow—­came from Saxonland into Erin with a numerous force, and many knights and archers, in the army of the son of Murcad, to contest Leinster for him, and to disturb the Gaels of Erin in general; and the son of Murcad gave his daughter to Iarl Strangbow for coming into his army.  They took Loch Garman—­Wexford—­and Port Lairge—­Waterford—­by force; and they took Gillemaire the officer of the fortress and Ua Faelain lord of the Deisi and his son, and they killed seven hundred persons there.  Domnall Breagac with numbers of the men of Breag fell by the Leinstermen on that occasion.  An army was led by Ruaidri Ua Concobar with the lord of Breifne and the lord of Oirgialla against Leinster and the Foreigners aforesaid, and there was a challenge of battle between them for the space of three days.”  This contest was indecisive.  The most noteworthy event of the battle was the plundering and slaughter of the Danes of At-Cliat by the newcomers under Iarl Strangbow.  The Danes had long before this given up their old pagan faith, converted by their captives and their Gaelic neighbors.  Christ Church Cathedral in At-Cliat or Dublin was founded early in the preceding century by Sitric son of Olaf, king of the Danes of Dublin, and Donatus the first Danish bishop; but the oldest part of the present structure belongs to the time we are now speaking of:  the close of the twelfth century.  The transepts with their chevron mouldings and the principal doorway are of that period, and we may regard them as an offering in expiation of the early heathen raids on Lambay, Saint Patrick’s Isle, and the early schools of the church.

The ambitious Diarmaid Mac Murcad died shortly after the last battle we have recorded, “perishing without sacrament, of a loathsome disease;” a manifest judgment, in the eyes of the Chronicler, for the crime of bringing the Normans to Ireland.  In the year that saw his death, “Henry the Second, king of the Saxons and duke of the Normans, came to Ireland with two hundred and forty ships.”  He established a footing in the land, as one of many contesting powers, but the immediate results of his coming were slight.  This we can judge from the record of three years later:  “A brave battle was fought by the Foreigners under Iarl Strangbow and the Gaels under Ruaidri Ua Concobar at Thurles, in which the Foreigners were finally defeated by dint of fighting.  Seventeen hundred of the Foreigners were slain in the battle, and only a few of them survived with the Iarl, who proceeded in sorrow to his home at Port Lairge—­Waterford.”  Iarl Strangbow died two years later at Dublin.

Norman warriors continue to appear during the succeeding years, fighting against the native chieftains and against each other, while the native chieftains continue their own quarrels, just as in the days of the first Norse raids.  Thus in the year of Iarl Strangbow’s death, Kells was laid waste by the Foreigners in alliance with the native Ui-Briain, while later in the same year the Foreigners were driven from Limerick by Domnall Ua-Briain, who laid siege to them and forced them to surrender.