Baron Athenry is one of the oldest titles in the Peerage of Ireland, but the date of its creation is thoroughly uncertain; each of the first four Berminghams listed below is claimed by some writers to have been Lord Athenry, but the evidence is disputed. The title appears to have been given to the de Birmingham family of Birmingham, then a large town in Warwickshire, as a reward for their help in the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1172. Both Sir William de Birmingham and his son Robert de Birmingham are variously claimed to have been involved in the invasion,