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Dermott, that he should bring no more English adventurers into 
Ireland, and that he should be submissive to Roderick as to his 
chief Lord. All this Dermott bound himself by the most solemn 
oaths to perform. He moreover gave his own son as a hostage for 
the performance of this engagement. A man of Dermott’s descrip- 
tion, however, was not to be bound by oaths or promises ; and there- 
fore, upon the arrival of a fresh body of English troops, under 
Maurice Fitzgerald, and others, subsequently, under Raymond Le 
Gross and Strongbow himself, he joined with these foreigners and 
gave his daughter in marriage to the Karl. 
Shortly after this transaction, early in the year 1170, Dermott 
and the English were joined by the valiant tribe of the Dalgais,* 
under Donald O’Brien, King of Limerick, who was married to one 
of Dermott’s daughters, sister to Eva, the wife of Strongbow. To 
this act he was instigated as well by the jealousy with which he 
viewed the growing power of the Conatian King, as by the close 
family connection between him and the King of Leinster and the 
prime leader of the English invaders. By this new addition of 
strength to the Allies, the English were enabled to obtain a perma- 
nent footing in Ireland, although of no very great extent; and, by 
this partial conquest, the English King assumed to himself, and 
VOL. XIV Z 
and, after her husband's death, had lived in a state of holy widowhood to the year 1193, when she 
died in the Abbey of Mellifont, to which she was a bountiful benefactress, having bestowed to 
it 60 ounces of gold, a chalice of the same metal for the high Altar, and holy furniture for 
nine other Altars in the same Monastery. 
* Descendants of Cas, son of Conall of the swift horses, King of Munster. The Dalgais 
included the principal families of Thomond, of which, in latter days, the O’Brien’s were the chief: 
They were always noted for bravery and prowess, of which many splendid examples are to be 
found in the History of Ireland. The chief of the M‘Namara’s, one of the most respectable families 
of which this Dal or tribe was composed, was the herditary officer that always inaugurated the 
chief of the O’Brien family, as Sovereigns of Thomond. 
