I talked here about the English justification in literature of the invasion of Ireland in the 1170s. The whole affair was a brutally opportunistic land-grab by members of the aristocracy acting in their own interests, but was couched in language of Christian salvation and national duty.

Gerald of Wales' polemic against the Irish and his depiction of the Synod of Kells justified the invasion by claiming that the Irish clergy directly invited Henry II to take control of Ireland in order to bring its supposedly failing church into line with England, and that his family's role in the conquest was a noble deed to support the rightful Irish king, and to bring civilising English Christianity to the barbarous and backwards Irish.