Desmond

Desmond, title of the FitzGerald lordship and earldom in Munster, held by the descendants of Thomas fitz Maurice (d. 1213), a younger son of Maurice fitz Gerald, who had landed at Wexford in 1169 as part of the original Anglo‐Norman invasion. Thomas received extensive lands in Limerick from King John. His son, John fitz Thomas, who was killed at the battle of Callan in 1261, increased the family's lands and power through a mixture of military action, chiefly against the MacCarthys, and royal favour. At one time or another he acted as sheriff of most of the counties of Munster. In 1259, after several visits to court in England, he obtained from the future Edward I a grant of the lordships of Desmond and the Decies, which had been held by his father‐in‐law, Thomas fitz Anthony. His death was followed by a long, damaging minority; but his grandson Thomas fitz Maurice (d. 1298), who married Margaret, a daughter of the Gloucestershire baronial family of Berkeley, and served as justiciar of Ireland in 1295, restored the family's position. It was further extended by Thomas's son (see desmond, maurice fitz thomas), who in 1329 was granted by the regime of Roger Mortimer the title of earl, together with liberty rights over Kerry and the office of sheriff in Cos. Waterford and Cork.

The relations of the earls of Desmond with the crown and, more particularly, its ministers in Ireland were often contentious. There were several reasons for this. The legal basis of the Desmond lordships was not beyond challenge. In making the grant of 1259, Edward had exceeded the powers he had been given by his father, Henry III. The endowments of 1329 were vulnerable to resumption when Edward III attained his majority and repudiated the acts of the Mortimer government. The intrusion of Desmond power into the de Clare lordships in Thomond and Cork, which had passed into the hands of absentees after 1321, was a further source of tension. But above all, the remote, frontier position of the earls depended on exploiting their lands and liberties in the settled parts of the south‐west, but it relied also upon acting as allies and patrons of neighbouring Gaelic leaders. Their lordship was of necessity highly militarized, and based increasingly on exactions such as coyne and livery. In this respect it differed little from that of their Munster rivals, the Butler earls of Ormond. But, unlike the Butlers, the earls of Desmond lacked the political advantage of interests closer to Dublin and lands in England.

The authorities wavered in their attitude to the earldom. Usually it was accepted as necessary to the stability of the south‐west. Attempts were made to harness the power of the earls, by granting them extensive judicial commissions. They were even, on rare occasions, admitted to the chief governorship, although the last such experiment, in 1463, ended disastrously (see Desmond, Thomas Fitzgerald). At other times, the crown and its agents were alarmed by their autocratic behaviour and Gaelic cultural complexion—a view promoted by their rivals and by urban communities in Munster, which regarded their rule as oppressive. In the 16th century, the earls appeared increasingly problematical to the English authorities. Their marriages—since the 1350s almost exclusively to local families such as the MacCarthys, O'Briens, Burkes, and Roches—confirmed their roots in south‐west Ireland and lack of ties with English society. On the other hand, the openness of Munster to continental influences was reflected in the threatening diplomacy, notably of the 10th earl (see Desmond, James Fitzgerald). The compromises and ambiguities of earlier periods were difficult to maintain in the age of the more intrusive late Tudor state. The Desmond rebellions in the reign of Elizabeth I were followed by the obliteration of the lordship in the Munster planatation\.

Robin Frame