S ong of D ermot and the E arl/ G este des E ngleis en Y rlande

Abstract

The Song of Dermot and the Earl is a Hiberno‐French chanson de geste which was composed in Ireland and survives only in a later thirteenth‐century medieval copy, London, Lambeth Palace Library, Carew MS 596. The Song is a key historical source for the history of Ireland in the twelfth century, and presents a heroic narrative recounting the story of the 1169 English invasion of Ireland at the behest of the Irish lord, Diarmait MacMurchada, in an attempt to regain his lost kingdom of Leinster and seeks to justify the invasion and conquest of Ireland from the English perspective.