Aoife MacMurrough

Aoife MacMurrough (c. 1145 – 1188, ), also known as Eva of Leinster, was an Irish noblewoman, Princess of Leinster and Countess of Pembroke. She was the daughter of Dermot MacMurrough (c. 1110 – 1171), King of Leinster, and his second wife, Mór Ní Tuathail or Mor O'Toole (c. 1114 – 1191), and a niece of Archbishop of Dublin St Lawrence O'Toole. Life As the daughter of a Gaelic king, the young Aoife would have been raised in much higher dignity than most other girls in Ireland who were of poorer stock than she; her privileged status ensured that she was educated in the law of the land and would have ensured that she was literate in Church-Latin. Since her mother (who also produced one son and another daughter) was the second wife of Diarmait, her station was automatically lower than that of her husband's first wife, Sadb Ní Faeláin, and her issue of two sons and one daughter. On 25 August 1170, following the Norman invasion of Ireland that her father had requested, she was married to Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, better known as Strongbow, the leader of the Norman invasion force, in Christchurch cathedral in Waterford. Her father, Dermot MacMurrough, who was seeking a military alliance with Strongbow in his feud with the King of Breffni, Tiernan O'Rourke, had promised Aoife to Pembroke. However, according to Brehon law, both the man and the woman had to consent to the marriage, so it is fair to conclude that Aoife accepted her father's arrangements. Under Anglo-Norman law, this gave Strongbow succession rights to the Kingdom of Leinster. Under Irish Brehon law, the marriage gave her a life interest only, after which any land would normally revert to male cousins; but Brehon law also recognised a transfer of "swordland" following a conquest. Aoife led troops in battle and is sometimes known as Red Eva.