Going back a long way up the thread, and in time - I never knew that the de Clares were invited in. But I suspect that if they hadn't, sooner or later the Normans would have found an excuse. Harold Godwinsson's sons organised a raid from Dublin - not the first, as Harold and his brothers had done the same thing to Edward the Confessor, and while Ireland was free, and host to wild Norsemen, it would have presented a danger to the intended islandwide Norman domination of Britain. Ancient history it may have been, but the same style of political thinking. Except of course that nowadays, the person who invites people in tends to disappear, unidentified. The one who invited the Normans in here, of course, was conveniently dead when they arrived.

Penny