John's First Expedition to Ireland refers to a visit to the Island of Ireland by John Plantagenet 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.