‘Almost all the world’s most notable catastrophes have been caused by women’? Reassessing Derbforgaill

There can be little doubt that the Anglo-Norman (or English) invasion of the twelfth century was one of the most important events of Irish history. By the time it took place it had been considered for some years by the English king, Henry II, and some modern commentators have been disposed to regard it as an inevitability. Remarkably, when contemporaneous writers set out to explain the invasion, they often blamed it on a particular woman: Derbforgaill, wife of the king of Bréifne. One author who visited Ireland in the early course of that invasion presented Derbforgaill as a latter-day Helen of Troy or Cleopatra, commenting that ‘almost all the world’s most notable catastrophes have been caused by women’. [i]

What did Derbforgaill do to earn such notoriety? In fact, it was not what she had done but what was done to her: she was abducted by the king of Leinster, Diarmait Mac Murchada, in 1152, in an effort to humiliate her husband, Tigernán Úa Ruairc. When Úa Ruairc tried to exact revenge some fourteen years later, Mac Murchada fled to Henry II’s court seeking aid and precipitating English intervention in Ireland.

Complicating the matter further, Derbforgaill was an exceptionally wealthy woman. When she was abducted, it was noted that she was taken with her wealth, and when she returned to Bréifne, that she brought her wealth with her. She also made two major donations later in life, one to the Cistercian monastery at Mellifont on the occasion of its consecration in 1157, and another to Clonmacnoise in 1167, supporting the construction of a nun’s church.

My article in Irish Historical Studies examines Derbforgaill’s life, focussing on the abduction and her two donations. It has been normal for commentators to stress Derbforgaill’s loyalty to her natal family, the royal dynasty of Meath, who were often at odds with her husband. I argue instead that her relationship with her husband was positive, and that her donations supported his political aims. I further argue that abduction implied rape in this and other similar instances mentioned in Irish sources; this is contrary to the view that Derbforgaill might have connived at her own abduction, or that she might have been considered a political hostage. The source of her ostensibly enormous and anomalous fortune is also worth considering: how much wealth could a royal woman expect to hold in twelfth-century Ireland, and how might this affect her social role?

The important thing where Derbforgaill and other important medieval Irish women are concerned is to restore as much historical context as possible, especially at the expense of literary tropes. Derbforgaill was not similar to Helen of Troy or Cleopatra, and she is better understood through a close examination of contemporary Irish records than through such fanciful comparisons. What we can recover about her life helps us understand more about women’s experiences of marriage, sexual violence, wealth and patronage in twelfth-century Ireland.

[i] Expugnatio Hibernica: the conquest of Ireland by Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. A.B. Scott and F.X. Martin (Dublin, 1978), pp 24–5.


Derbforgaill: twelfth-century abductee, patron and wife by Seán Ó Hoireabhárd

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