Aoife MacMurrough also known by later historians as Eva of Leinster, was the daughter of Dermot MacMurrough

Dermot MacMurrough

Diarmait Mac Murchada , anglicized as Dermot MacMurrough or Dermod MacMurrough , was a King of Leinster in Ireland. In 1167, he was deprived of his kingdom by the High King of Ireland - Turlough Mór O'Connor...

 , King of Leinster, and his wife Mor O'Toole

Mor O'Toole

Mor O'Toole was a Queen-consort of Leinster as the first wife of King Dermot MacMurrough. Under Brehon Law, Irish kings were allowed two wives. King Dermot's second wife was Sadhbh Ni Fhaolain...

 (c.1114-1191).

Marriage

On the 29 August 1170, following the Norman invasion of Ireland

Norman Invasion of Ireland

The Norman invasion of Ireland was a two-stage process, which began on 1 May 1169 when a force of loosely associated Norman knights landed near Bannow, County Wexford...

 that her father had requested, she married Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke

Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke

Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke , Lord of Leinster, Justiciar of Ireland . Like his father, he was also commonly known as Strongbow...

, better known as Strongbow, the leader of the Norman invasion force, in Reginald's Tower in Waterford

Waterford

Waterford is a city in the South-East Region of Ireland. It is the oldest city in the country and fifth largest by population. Waterford City Council is the local government authority for the city and its immediate hinterland...

. She had been promised to Strongbow by her father who had visited England to ask for an invasion army. He was not allowed to give his daughter away, as under Early Irish Law Aoife had the choice of whom she married, but she had to agree to an arranged marriage

Arranged marriage

An arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...

.

Under Anglo-Norman law, this gave Strongbow succession rights to the Kingdom of Leinster

Gaelic Ireland

Gaelic Ireland is the name given to the period when a Gaelic political order existed in Ireland. The order continued to exist after the arrival of the Anglo-Normans until about 1607 AD...

. 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 conducted battles on behalf of her husband and is sometimes known as Red Eva . She had two sons and a daughter with her husband Richard de Clare, and within several generations her descendants included much of the nobility of northwestern Europe, including Robert the Bruce

Robert I of Scotland

Robert I , popularly known as Robert the Bruce , was King of Scots from March 25, 1306, until his death in 1329.His paternal ancestors were of Scoto-Norman heritage , and...

 and Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall

Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall

Richard of Cornwall was Count of Poitou , 1st Earl of Cornwall and German King...

 who was elected King of the Romans

King of the Romans

King of the Romans was the title used by the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire following his election to the office by the princes of the Kingdom of Germany...

 in 1257.

Aoife is the ancestress of many Kings of England by a number of lineal descent, such as that of her granddaughter Eva Marshal, whose daughter Maud de Braose

Maud de Braose, Baroness Wigmore

Maud de Braose, Baroness Wigmore was a noble heiress, and one of the most important, being a member of the powerful de Braose family which held many lordships and domains in the Welsh Marches...

, married Roger de Mortimer. All the monarchs of England from 1413, as well as Mary, Queen of Scots, were directly descended from Maud, as is the current British Royal Family

British Royal Family

The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...

. Queen consorts Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...

, Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour

Jane Seymour was Queen of England as the third wife of King Henry VIII. She succeeded Anne Boleyn as queen consort following the latter's execution for trumped up charges of high treason, incest and adultery in May 1536. She died of postnatal complications less than two weeks after the birth of...

, Catherine Howard

Catherine Howard

Catherine Howard , also spelled Katherine, Katheryn or Kathryn, was the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, and sometimes known by his reference to her as his "rose without a thorn"....

, and Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr ; 1512 – 5 September 1548) was Queen consort of England and Ireland and the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII of England. She married Henry VIII on 12 July 1543. She was the fourth commoner Henry had taken as his consort, and outlived him...

 were also notable descendants of Aoife through multiple lines. By her descendant, Lady Katherine Mortimer

Katherine Mortimer, Countess of Warwick

Katherine Mortimer, Countess of Warwick was the wife of Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick KG, an English peer, and military commander during the Hundred Years War...

, who married Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick

Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick

Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick, KG was an English nobleman and military commander during the Hundred Years' War...

, Aoife and Strongbow were ancestors of the Earls of Warwick and the last of the Plantagenet

House of Plantagenet

The House of Plantagenet , a branch of the Angevins, was a royal house founded by Geoffrey V of Anjou, father of Henry II of England. Plantagenet kings first ruled the Kingdom of England in the 12th century. Their paternal ancestors originated in the French province of Gâtinais and gained the...

 kings which included Richard III

Richard III of England

Richard III was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty...

 of England and his wife, Lady Anne Neville

Anne Neville

Lady Anne Neville was Princess of Wales as the wife of Edward of Westminster and Queen of England as the consort of King Richard III. She held the latter title for less than two years, from 26 June 1483 until her death in March 1485...

.

Children of Aoife MacMurrough and Richard de Clare (Strongbow)

Name	Birth	Death	Notes
Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke	1172	1220	m. Aug 1189, Sir William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke Sir William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke , also called William the Marshal , was an Anglo-Norman soldier and statesman. He was described as the "greatest knight that ever lived" by Stephen Langton... , Lord Marshal, son of John Fitz Gilbert, Marshal (Marechal) of England, and Sibylla of Salisbury.
Gilbert de Striguil (Chepstow), 3rd Earl of Pembroke	1173	1185	Inherited title from father but died as a minor. The title then went to his sister's husband on marriage. Isabel's husband, William Marshal, was given the title Earl of Pembroke in his own right by King John of England. Until that time, Marshal did not call himself the Earl until he had achieved the privilege in his own right, rather than through his marriage to Isabel.
Joan de Clare	1175	?	m. Godfrey Gamage, son of William De Gamages and Elizabeth De Miners.

Sources

• O Croinin, Daibhi (1995) Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200 London: Longman Press; p. 281
• Salmonson, Jessica Amanda.(1991) The Encyclopedia of Amazons. Paragon House. Page 160. ISBN 1-55778-420-5
• Weis, Frederick Lewis Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700, Lines: 66-26, 175-7, 261-30