FitzGerald

Origin of the FitzGerald Name

FitzGerald is not a Gaelic surname. It arrived in Ireland with the Norman invasion of 1169–1170 and belongs to the small group of Anglo-Norman family names that became so deeply embedded in Irish life that they are now inseparable from Irish identity. The family's journey from foreign conquerors to the most ardently Irish magnates in the island's history is one of the central stories of medieval Ireland.

The name derives from the Norman French fils de Gerald — "son of Gerald." The Gerald in question was Gerald of Windsor, a Norman constable who held Pembroke Castle in Wales and whose sons came to Ireland as part of the Cambro-Norman invading force. The Fitz- prefix was a common Norman naming convention derived from the Latin filius (son), used to indicate patronymic descent. FitzGerald thus means exactly what it says: son of Gerald.

The two sons most important to Irish history were Maurice FitzGerald, who received vast grants of land in Leinster, and his descendants who divided into two great branches — the FitzGeralds of Kildare in Leinster and the FitzGeralds of Desmond in Munster. These two branches became the Earls of Kildare and the Earls of Desmond respectively, and together they represented the most formidable concentration of landed power in medieval and early modern Ireland.

County Distribution

FitzGerald is concentrated in the two historic zones of Geraldine power — Leinster (particularly Kildare and Wexford) and Munster (particularly Kerry, Limerick, and Cork). The name is found throughout Ireland but remains most dense in these territories, reflecting eight centuries of settled presence.

Kildare — the FitzGeralds of Leinster

County Kildare was the heartland of the FitzGeralds of Leinster, who became Earls of Kildare and at their height ruled Ireland as effectively as the English crown itself. Maynooth Castle in Kildare was their principal seat — a fortification that in its fifteenth-century form was one of the largest private residences in the British Isles. The FitzGerald presence in Kildare extended through every level of society, and the county remains a primary location for FitzGerald family research.

Kerry and Limerick — the FitzGeralds of Desmond

The Munster branch of the FitzGeralds became Earls of Desmond, a title that covered a vast territory in the southwest. County Kerry is their most enduring heartland — the Dingle Peninsula, the Iveragh Peninsula, and the lands around Castleisland and Tralee were deeply Geraldine territory. The distinctive Kerry pronunciation of the name — often "Fitzgerald" with a soft, almost elided first syllable — reflects centuries of Gaelic immersion. County Limerick and parts of Cork also carry substantial FitzGerald populations from the Desmond branch.

Wexford

County Wexford was among the earliest areas of Norman settlement in Ireland, and the FitzGeralds were among the first families to establish themselves there. Wexford FitzGeralds represent some of the oldest continuous Geraldine presence in Ireland and have their own distinct genealogical tradition separate from the Kildare and Desmond branches.

FitzGerald Through Irish History

The Geraldine dynasty

By the fifteenth century the FitzGeralds of Kildare had achieved something remarkable: as Earls of Kildare, they effectively governed Ireland on behalf of the English crown — and sometimes in spite of it. Gearóid Mór, "Great Gerald," the eighth Earl of Kildare (c. 1456–1513), was the most powerful man in Ireland for three decades. He managed crown patronage, commanded armies, negotiated with Gaelic Irish lords, and maintained a dominance so complete that when Henry VII asked who should govern Ireland if not Kildare, one councillor replied: "Then let him govern all Ireland." Henry VII largely accepted this assessment. Kildare governed.

His son Gearóid Óg, the ninth Earl, continued the dynasty's dominance until the political winds in England shifted. Henry VIII, newly determined to bring Ireland under direct English control, summoned the ninth Earl to London in 1534. While the Earl was in England, his son Thomas — known as Silken Thomas for the silk fringes on his followers' helmets — launched a rebellion that would prove catastrophic for the Geraldines of Kildare. The rebellion failed. Silken Thomas and five of his uncles were executed at Tyburn in 1537. The Kildare FitzGeralds were broken as a political force, though they survived as a family.

The Desmond Rebellions

The Munster Geraldines had a different trajectory. The Earls of Desmond maintained their power into the Elizabethan period, becoming the centre of resistance to English expansion in Munster. The Desmond Rebellions — two major uprisings in the 1560s–70s and the more devastating rebellion of 1579–1583 — ended in the destruction of the Desmond earldom. The last Earl of Desmond, Gerald FitzGerald, was killed in 1583 in a remote glen in County Kerry. His death ended the Munster Geraldine lordship, and the Munster Plantation that followed distributed former Desmond lands to English settlers including Edmund Spenser and Walter Raleigh.

"More Irish than the Irish themselves"

The FitzGeralds exemplified the Norman settlers who became absorbed into Gaelic Irish culture — speaking Irish, adopting Brehon law, fostering children with Gaelic lords, and marrying into Irish dynasties over generations. The phrase Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores — "more Irish than the Irish themselves" — was coined to describe Anglo-Norman families like the FitzGeralds who had undergone this cultural absorption. It captures something genuinely unusual: a family that arrived as conquerors and within a few generations was composing poetry in Irish and leading Irish resistance to English crown authority.

FitzGerald in the Diaspora

The FitzGerald name is among the most widely distributed Irish surnames in the English-speaking world, reflecting both the family's medieval prominence and the scale of emigration from the Munster counties where the Desmond branch was strongest.

The American connection — JFK's middle name

John Fitzgerald Kennedy carried the FitzGerald name through his maternal grandmother Mary Jane Fitzgerald, whose father John "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald served as Mayor of Boston. The FitzGeralds of this line were from County Wexford, part of the Leinster Geraldine tradition. JFK's middle name, Fitzgerald, was thus his mother's maiden name — connecting the thirty-fifth President to both the Wexford FitzGeralds through his mother and the Wexford Kennedys through his father. The double Wexford connection was not coincidental: Irish Famine emigration sent large numbers of Wexford families to Boston, where the Irish-Catholic community concentrated.

Kerry FitzGeralds in America and Australia

The Desmond branch FitzGeralds — particularly those from County Kerry — are among the most numerous Irish-American Fitzgeralds. Kerry emigration was substantial during the Famine and continued through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the United States, Kerry FitzGeralds concentrated in Boston, New York, and Chicago, following the established patterns of chain migration that brought successive generations from the same townlands to the same urban neighbourhoods. In Australia, FitzGeralds from both Kerry and Kildare are found from the convict era onwards, and the name appears throughout the history of Australian Catholic communities.

Researching FitzGerald Ancestry

FitzGerald research is both well-resourced and occasionally complex. The surname's Norman origin means that medieval documentary records survive in greater quantity than for most Gaelic surnames, but the existence of two major branches — Kildare (Leinster) and Desmond (Munster) — means that establishing geographic origin is essential before working backwards through genealogical records.

Key sources

IrishGenealogy.ie — civil registration records from 1864 and Catholic parish registers, many of which are now free and searchable. Kerry and Kildare are both well-represented. For post-1864 research, this is the starting point.

The Irish Manuscripts Commission — the FitzGeralds generated extensive documentary records. The Book of Howth, the Book of Pedigrees of the Kildare Geraldines, and the Desmond Surveys (following the Desmond Rebellions) are among the materials available through the Commission.

Griffith's Valuation (1847–1864) — searchable at Ask About Ireland. For Munster Fitzgeralds, concentrations in Kerry (particularly the barony of Trughanacmy and the Dingle and Iveragh peninsulas) are useful for locating specific townlands.

The 1901 and 1911 Census of Ireland — digitised and free at the National Archives of Ireland. FitzGerald households in Kerry, Kildare, Limerick, and Wexford are well documented in these returns.

The Geraldine Society — the family association for FitzGerald descendants, which maintains genealogical records and holds periodic gatherings at Maynooth and in Munster. For researchers with FitzGerald ancestry, this is a valuable resource for connecting with the broader family research community.

DNA testing — AncestryDNA and 23andMe both have substantial FitzGerald populations among Irish-American test-takers. The distinction between Norman-derived FitzGerald DNA (Y-chromosome haplogroups often of Continental European origin) and Gaelic Irish DNA can sometimes help researchers establish whether their FitzGerald line is from the original Norman family or a separate Gaelic family that adopted the anglicised name in later centuries.