Negotiating across legal and cultural borders: Aife, daughter of Diarmait Mac Murchada, king of Leinster, and marriage, motherhood and widowhood in twelfth-century Ireland and England

This article considers the marriage, motherhood, and widowhood of Aífe, daughter of Diarmait Mac Murchada, king of Leinster, who was wed in August 1170 to Richard fitz Gilbert, more memorably known as Strongbow. By mid-1176 Aífe was widowed with two young children, Gilbert and Isabella, and, since Strongbow was a tenant-in-chief of the English crown, both she and they were taken into the custody of King Henry II. While Strongbow acquired the lordship of Leinster through his marriage to Aífe, as his widow she was assigned dower - land and income set aside for her support in widowhood - from Strongbow’s own resources. The Irish and Anglo-Norman sources relating to Aífe’s career, and the information they afford as to how she negotiated her status and role in Leinster and on her husband’s estates in England and South Wales, are explored.