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Author: Fitzgerald, George-Robert

Biography:

FITZGERALD, George-Robert (b c. 1746-86: DIB)

Known as “Fighting Fitzgerald” he was a duellist who led an often scandalous and violent life. He was the son of Gerald Fitzgerald of Turlough, County Mayo, and his wife Lady Mary Hervey, daughter of John, Baron Hervey of Ickleworth. His parents separated when he was a boy and he was raised in London by his mother and grandmother. He attended Eton but left to join the army and, while stationed at Galway, fought the first of his many duels. In 1770 he married Jane Connolly (d 1779) against the wishes of her family; they had one daughter. They went to Paris where they lived lavishly, spending her inheritance and an annual stipend from his father. They moved to London and, in 1776, to Ireland where Fitzgerald killed a man during his father’s unsuccessful campaign for a parliamentary seat. Another duel, in St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, left him badly wounded. Perhaps under the influence of his wife, Fitzgerald made some attempt to be a good landowner of the Mayo estate; he supported legislative independence from Britain and encouraged wheat cultivation in Ireland. But he quarrelled with his father and treated him cruelly, manacling him to a bed among other misdeeds; his brother took legal action and Fitzgerald was imprisoned but released for good behaviour. It was after this that his Riddle was first published in 1782, the same year that he published An Appeal to the Public and married another heiress, Sydney Vaughan.  Fitzgerald’s final reckoning came because of his involvement in the murder of an attorney; for this he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to hanging, dismemberment, and beheading. His punishment on 12 June 1786 took place outside the gaol at Castlebar and newspaper accounts reported that he was hanged twice, the rope having broken in the first attempt. His remains were buried in the cemetery at Turlough.  (DIB 10 Sept. 2021; ODNB 10 Sept. 2021; The Life of George Robert Fitzgerald [1806]; The Life and Times of George Robert Fitzgerald, Commonly Called Fighting Fitzgerald [1852]; Reading Mercury 26 June 1786)

 

Books written (3):

Dublin: 1782
Dublin: 1782