Aoife MacMurrough

Aoife MacMurrough (c. 1145 – 1188, Aoife Nic Mhurchada), also known as Eva of Leinster, was an Irish noblewoman, Princess of Leinster and Countess of Pembroke. She was the daughter of Dermot MacMurrough (c. 1110 – 1171) (Diarmait Mac Murchada), King of Leinster, and his second wife, Mór Ní Tuathail or Mor O'Toole (c. 1114 – 1191), and a niece of Archbishop of Dublin St Lawrence O'Toole.

Life
As the daughter of the Gaelic nobility of Ireland, the young Aoife would have been raised in much higher dignity than most other girls in Ireland who were of poorer stock than she; her privileged status ensured that she was educated in Brehon law and would have ensured that she was literate in Ecclesiastical Latin. Since her mother (who also produced one son and another daughter) was the second wife of Diarmait, her station was automatically lower than that of her husband's first wife, Sadb Ní Faeláin, and her issue of two sons and one daughter.

On 25 August 1170, following the Norman invasion of Ireland that her father had requested, she was married to Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, better known as Strongbow, the leader of the Norman invasion force, in Christchurch Cathedral in Waterford. Her father, Dermot MacMurrough, who was seeking a military alliance with Strongbow in his feud with the King of Breffni, Tiernan O'Rourke and the High King of Ireland, had negotiated a dynastic marriage between Aoife and Strongbow. However, according to Brehon law, both the man and the woman had to consent to a marriage, so it is fair to conclude that Aoife agreed to an arranged marriage.

Under Anglo-Norman law, this gave Strongbow succession rights to the Kingdom of Leinster. Under Brehon law, the marriage gave her a life interest only, after which any land would normally revert to male members of the derbhfine; but Brehon law also recognised a transfer of "swordland" following a military conquest. Aoife repeatedly led troops into battle and is sometimes known as Red Eva (Aoife Rua).

She had two sons and a daughter with her husband Richard de Clare and through their daughter, Isabel de Clare, within a few generations their descendants included much of the nobility of Europe including all the Kings of Scotland since Robert the Bruce (1274–1329) and all those of England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom since Henry IV (1367–1413); and, apart from Anne of Cleves, all the queen consorts of, as well as, Henry VIII.

Death
While the exact date of the death of Aoife of Leinster is unknown (one suggested year is 1188), there is in existence one tale of her demise. As a young woman, she lived many years following the death of Strongbow in 1176, and devoted herself to raising their children and defending their territory.