11 May - Battle of Dysert O'Dea: The Hiberno-Norman Richard de Clare is defeated and killed by Conor O'Dea in alliance with O'Briens, MacNamaras and Ó hEithirs.
In that year a major battle was fought at Dysert O'Dea as part of the Irish Bruce Wars, in which both Thomas De Clare and his son Richard were killed.
By 1284 the number of canons had declined to seven, and these were evicted in 1285 when the widow Maud de Lacy, Countess of Gloucester(d.1289), formerly the wife of Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester(d.1262), refounded the establishment as a nunnery as the Abbey Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Etheldreda.
The Barretts then migrated to Ireland with the Norman warlord Strongbow (Richard Le Clare, the 2nd Earl of Pembroke) as hired mercenaries at the end of the twelfth century in the Norman Invasion of Ireland.
De Lacy only escaped with difficulty; he seems to have left Dublin in charge of Earl Richard de Clare by the king's orders, and to have commenced securing Meath by the erection of castles.
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After de Hereford was given large territories by Strongbow, he granted lands at what is now Castlewarden, along with Wochtred (Oughter Ard), both in County Kildare, to the Abbey of St Thomas in Dublin.
The Order spread to France and then to England after being invited by Richard de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford, to found Clare Priory in Suffolk, by the River Stour.
Hugo De Lacy, one of the Normans who came to Ireland after Strongbow, built the original fort circa 1172, having been granted the Kingdom of Meath by Henry II.
Most importantly he obtained the support of the Earl of Pembroke Richard de Clare, known as Strongbow.