Empire (2nd of 90) -- 1155: Ireland, the first colony

The first proper colonisation took place not in the West or East Indies, nor in America, but in Ireland. Ireland was the first English colony. In 1155, Pope Adrian IV published a Papal Bull Laudabiliter giving Henry II authority over Ireland. The document's value was that it authorized invasion.

"This Sceptred Isle: Empire" is a narrative history of the British Empire from Ireland in the 12th century to the independence of India in the 20th, told in 90 programmes written by historian Christopher Lee and narrated by actor Juliet Stevenson. (You will be able to listen again online to up to five most recent episodes of "Empire".)

In the late 1160s, the king of Leinster, Dermot MacMurrough [Diarmaid Mac Murchadha Uí], asked for Henry's protection. Henry allowed Dermot to recruit Norman knights led by the Earl of Pembroke, Richard de Clare. The first batch of Normans landed in 1169. De Clare arrived the following year and captured Waterford and later Dublin and married Dermot's daughter.

In 1171, Henry II, who had been distracted by among other matters, the murder of Thomas Becket and the disloyalty of his own sons, suspected the Normans were getting too much power in Ireland. Dermot died leaving the earldom to de Clare. This made Henry II even more alarmed. So he went to Ireland to demand the allegiance of the Irish and the Norman knights.

Henry was again distracted in 1174 when he had to fight off a rebellion by his own children. In 1175, he was forced to recognize Rory O'Connor as high king of Ireland. Two years later the conquest of Ulster was started and John de Courcy founded Belfast and work began on Belfast castle. The same year, 1177 John Lackland, Henry II's youngest son was given the title lord of Ireland. The burdensome history of the British and their first colony was under way.