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Carew Castle, initially built by Gerald de Windsor, estate part of Princess Nest dowry. Carton House was the ancestral seat for over 700 years of the Dukes of Leinster. The FitzGerald dynasty is a Hiberno-Norman noble and aristocratic dynasty, originally of Cambro-Norman and Anglo-Norman origin.
James fitz Maurice FitzGerald (died 1579), called " fitz Maurice ", was a Gaelicised Hiberno-Norman nobleman and the captain-general of Desmond while Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond, was detained in England by Queen Elizabeth after the Battle of Affane in 1565.
The main branches of the family are: The FitzMaurices and FitzGeralds of Kildare (from 1316 Earls of Kildare, later Marquess of Kildare and from 1766 Dukes of Leinster and First Peers of Ireland). The current boss is Maurice FitzGerald, 9th Duke of Leinster.
The rebellion in 1579 of James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, generally known as James Fitzmaurice and cousin of Gerald Fitzgerald, the 14th Earl of Desmond, was strictly the second Desmond rebellion in the stormy history of that noble house.
The Knights of Glin are a branch of the great Norman family, the Fitzgeralds or Geraldines, Earls of Desmond who were granted extensive lands in County Limerick in the early 14th. century by their Desmond overlords. The Desmond family were all descended from the Norman Maurice Fitzgerald, a companion-in-arms to Strongbow.
The Hereditary Knights are descended from Gerald Fitz-John-Fitz- Gerald, eldest son of John Fitz-Thomas Fitz- Gerald, Lord of Decies and Desmond, by his second wife Honora. He, by virtue of his royal seignory as a Count Palatine, created them knights.
The progenitor of the Irish Fitzmaurices was a Cambro-Norman Marcher Lord, Maurice FitzGerald, Lord of Lanstephan; a younger son of the Norman chieftain Gerald FitzWalter of Windsor and of his wife, Nest ferch Rhys of the Welsh royal House of Dinefwr.
