May 01

• 1997 In the British general election, the Labour Party, under Tony Blair, secured a landslide victory, winning 418 seats.
• 1171 Diarmaid MacMurrough (c. 61), king of Leinster and key instigator of the Norman invasion of Ireland, died in Ferns ‘without a will, without penance, without unction, as his evil deeds deserved’, according to the Four Masters.
• 1171 Dermot MacMurrough, king of Leinster, who provoked the Norman invasion, died in Ferns, Co. Wexford.
• 1170 A Norman force of 40 knights, 60 other horsemen and 500 archers, led by Raymond le Gros Fitzgerald and his uncle, Maurice Fitzgerald, landed at Baginbun, Bannow Bay, Co. Wexford.