John's first expedition to Ireland

John's First Expedition to Ireland
Part of Norman invasion of Ireland
John as King of England, painted c. 1250–1259 by Matthew Paris in his Historia Anglorum
Date 25 April 1185 – December 1185 Location Ireland Result John returns to England. Hugh de Lacy falls out of royal favour.
Belligerents
Kingdom of England English Ireland	Lordship of Meath Kingdom of Thomond
Commanders and leaders
John Plantagenet Theobald Walter William de Burgh	Hugh de Lacy Donal O'Brien

In 1185, Prince John of England visited the island of Ireland as part of a campaign to secure the influence of the House of Plantagenet and the Crown of England, who planned to set up a Kingdom of Ireland within the Angevin Empire. John was himself a future king of England, the son of Henry II of England, and had been declared Lord of Ireland by his father at the Council of Oxford in 1177. Despite his own ambitions for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, John Lackland was sent west to Ireland by his father and landed at Waterford in April 1185.

The inexperienced young prince managed to offend the customs of the Irish Gaels who had met him diplomatically. John (who struggled to pay his own men) attempted to promise knights who traveled with him with Gaelic lands, which further irritated the natives. Aside from these concerns, he grew an intense dislike of the powerful Viceroy of Ireland, Hugh de Lacy, who held the Lordship of Meath, following his conquest of the Gaelic Kingdom of Meath. Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the Plantagenets were repeatedly concerned with Norman barons, nominally loyal to them, becoming too powerful in Ireland and this was the case with the successful (militarily and diplomatically) de Lacys.

John returned to England in December 1185 and complained bitterly to his father about the influence of de Lacy in Ireland. Much to the relief of the Plantagenets, the following year, de Lacy himself was assassinated at Durrow by an Irishman, Giolla Gan Mathiar Ó Maidhaigh. Plans were made for John to return to Ireland and the new Pope Urban III was more favourable than his predecessors to granting him the title King of Ireland. However, this was cancelled due to the death of John's brother Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany. John would later return to Ireland for a second time in 1210 while King of England, as part of a campaign to crush a rebellion by a section of Norman lords; this time he was far more successful.