Gerald FitzGerald, 3rd Earl of Desmond

Gerald fitzMaurice FitzGerald, also known by the Irish Gaelic "Gearóid Iarla" (Earl Gerald), was the 3rd Earl of Desmond, in southwestern Ireland, under the first creation of that title, and a member of the Hiberno-Norman dynasty of the FitzGeralds, or Geraldines. He was the son of Maurice FitzGerald, 1st Earl of Desmond, by his third wife Aveline, daughter of Nicholas FitzMaurice, 3rd Lord of Kerry. He was half-brother to Maurice FitzGerald, 2nd Earl of Desmond.

Career and poetry

Gerald was made Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in 1367, but in 1370 was imprisoned by Brian O'Brien of Thomond.^[1] While in prison, Gerald wrote poetry in the Irish language, most famously the poem Mairg adeir olc ris na mnáibh ("Speak not ill of womenkind"). Indeed, Gerald was instrumental in replacing French with Irish as the preferred language of the Hiberno-Norman aristocracy, and typified the cliché among later Irish historians that the Geraldines were "more Irish than the Irish themselves."

Marriage and issue

In 1359 Gerald married Eleanor(or Ellen) Butler, daughter of James Butler, 2nd Earl of Ormond. She died in 1404. They had issue three sons:

1. John FitzGerald, 4th Earl of Desmond
2. Maurice FitzGerald
3. James FitzGerald, 6th Earl of Desmond, 'the Usurper'

and two daughters:

1. Joan, married Maurice FitzJohn, Lord of Kerry
2. Catherine, married John FitzThomas

In legend

In local legend, Gerald was romantically linked with the goddess Áine, a legend which drew upon a pre-existing local Celtic legend about liaisons between Áine and the King of Munster, Ailill Aulom, but updated it with themes drawn from the Francophone courtly love poetry of Continental Europe, in particular the motif of the man who falls in love with a swan maiden. The story may have its various inspirations but it is the essence of the Geraldine claim to an association with Áine that matters. This represents the most extreme degree of Gaelicization.

After his disappearance in 1398, another legend grew up that Gerald sleeps in a cave beside (or under) Lough Gur, and will someday awaken and ride forth on a silver-shod steed to rule again in Desmond (or, alternatively, "save Ireland").

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