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Lord Edward FitzGerald
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Lord Edward FitzGerald
Lord Edward FitzGerald (15 October 1763 – 4 June 1798) was an Irish aristocrat and revolutionary proponent of Irish independence from Britain. He abandoned his prospects as a distinguished veteran of British service in the American War of Independence, and as an Irish Parliamentarian, to embrace the cause in Ireland of Catholic-Protestant reconciliation and of a sovereign republic. Unable to reconcile with Ireland's Protestant Ascendancy or with the Kingdom's English-appointed administration, he sought inspiration in the American Revolution and in revolutionary France where, in 1792, he met and befriended Thomas Paine. From 1796 he became a leading proponent within the Society of United Irishmen of a French-assisted insurrection. On the eve of the intended uprising in May 1798, he was fatally wounded in the course of arrest.
FitzGerald, the fifth son of the 1st Duke of Leinster and the Lady Emily Lennox (daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond), was born at Carton House, near Dublin, and was a member of the Fitzgerald dynasty. In 1773 his father died and his mother soon afterwards married William Ogilvie, who had been the tutor for him and his siblings. He spent most of his childhood in Frescati House at Blackrock in Dublin where he was tutored by Ogilvie in a manner chiefly directed to the acquisition of knowledge that would fit him for a military career.
FitzGerald joined the British Army in 1779 and then became aide-de-camp on the staff of Lord Rawdon in the southern theatre of the American Revolutionary War. He was wounded in the leg at the Battle of Eutaw Springs on 8 September 1781, and was carried off the field by an escaped slave named Tony Small (see Black Loyalist). Small was a free man at the end of the war, and Lord Edward employed him from then on, and the two travelled together back to Europe. FitzGerald was evacuated from Charleston, South Carolina in 1782 when the British forces abandoned the city. Webb surmises that the success of the American colonists in fighting against regular troops led him in later years to the conviction that his countrymen in Ireland could cope with them with a similar result.
In 1783, he visited the West Indies, before returning to Ireland where, in the autumn of that year, his brother William, the 2nd Duke of Leinster, had procured Edward's election to the Irish Parliament as a Member for Athy. He held the seat, as a supporter of Henry Grattan's Patriot opposition, until 1790 (when he was replaced by his brother Henry).
In the spring of 1786, Fitzgerald took the then unusual step for a young nobleman of entering the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, after which he made a tour through Spain in 1787. Dejected, in England, by unrequited love for his cousin Georgina Lennox (who later married the 3rd Earl Bathurst), accompanied by Small in 1788 he joined the 54th Regiment in Halifax, Nova Scotia, then a resettlement site for thousands of free ‘loyalist’ blacks, before proceeding to the garrison in New Brunswick.
During their eighteen months in North America, Fitzgerald and Small, guided by a compass, traversed the country from Fredericton, New Brunswick to Quebec, crossed Upper Canada to Detroit, where Fitzgerald was honoured with some kind of honorary affiliation (not strictly adopted as has been claimed) given the name "Eghnidal", by the chief of the Bear clan of the Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk), Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill), and made his way down the Mississippi to New Orleans, whence they returned to England. Of the frontier society he encountered, Fitzgerald commented: "The equality of everybody and their manner of life I like very much. There are no gentlemen, everybody is on a footing".
In 1790, Fitzgerald turned down the command of an expedition against Cadiz offered him by Pitt, observing that the promotion would require him to vote in Parliament with the government and against his convictions. Instead, replaced by his brother Henry as MP for Athy, he was returned to the Irish House of Commons from County Kildare, frequently returning to visit family in England where he entered into intimate terms with his first cousin Charles Fox, with Richard Sheridan and other leading Whigs.
His Whig connections, together with his transatlantic experiences, predisposed Fitzgerald to sympathise with the doctrines of the French Revolution, which he embraced enthusiastically when he visited Paris in October 1792. He lodged with Thomas Paine and listened to the debates in the Convention. At a convivial gathering on 18 November, he supported a toast to "the speedy abolition of all hereditary titles and feudal distinctions", and gave proof of his zeal by expressly repudiating his own title, a performance for which he was dismissed from the army.
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Lord Edward FitzGerald
Lord Edward FitzGerald (15 October 1763 – 4 June 1798) was an Irish aristocrat and revolutionary proponent of Irish independence from Britain. He abandoned his prospects as a distinguished veteran of British service in the American War of Independence, and as an Irish Parliamentarian, to embrace the cause in Ireland of Catholic-Protestant reconciliation and of a sovereign republic. Unable to reconcile with Ireland's Protestant Ascendancy or with the Kingdom's English-appointed administration, he sought inspiration in the American Revolution and in revolutionary France where, in 1792, he met and befriended Thomas Paine. From 1796 he became a leading proponent within the Society of United Irishmen of a French-assisted insurrection. On the eve of the intended uprising in May 1798, he was fatally wounded in the course of arrest.
FitzGerald, the fifth son of the 1st Duke of Leinster and the Lady Emily Lennox (daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond), was born at Carton House, near Dublin, and was a member of the Fitzgerald dynasty. In 1773 his father died and his mother soon afterwards married William Ogilvie, who had been the tutor for him and his siblings. He spent most of his childhood in Frescati House at Blackrock in Dublin where he was tutored by Ogilvie in a manner chiefly directed to the acquisition of knowledge that would fit him for a military career.
FitzGerald joined the British Army in 1779 and then became aide-de-camp on the staff of Lord Rawdon in the southern theatre of the American Revolutionary War. He was wounded in the leg at the Battle of Eutaw Springs on 8 September 1781, and was carried off the field by an escaped slave named Tony Small (see Black Loyalist). Small was a free man at the end of the war, and Lord Edward employed him from then on, and the two travelled together back to Europe. FitzGerald was evacuated from Charleston, South Carolina in 1782 when the British forces abandoned the city. Webb surmises that the success of the American colonists in fighting against regular troops led him in later years to the conviction that his countrymen in Ireland could cope with them with a similar result.
In 1783, he visited the West Indies, before returning to Ireland where, in the autumn of that year, his brother William, the 2nd Duke of Leinster, had procured Edward's election to the Irish Parliament as a Member for Athy. He held the seat, as a supporter of Henry Grattan's Patriot opposition, until 1790 (when he was replaced by his brother Henry).
In the spring of 1786, Fitzgerald took the then unusual step for a young nobleman of entering the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, after which he made a tour through Spain in 1787. Dejected, in England, by unrequited love for his cousin Georgina Lennox (who later married the 3rd Earl Bathurst), accompanied by Small in 1788 he joined the 54th Regiment in Halifax, Nova Scotia, then a resettlement site for thousands of free ‘loyalist’ blacks, before proceeding to the garrison in New Brunswick.
During their eighteen months in North America, Fitzgerald and Small, guided by a compass, traversed the country from Fredericton, New Brunswick to Quebec, crossed Upper Canada to Detroit, where Fitzgerald was honoured with some kind of honorary affiliation (not strictly adopted as has been claimed) given the name "Eghnidal", by the chief of the Bear clan of the Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk), Karonghyontye (Captain David Hill), and made his way down the Mississippi to New Orleans, whence they returned to England. Of the frontier society he encountered, Fitzgerald commented: "The equality of everybody and their manner of life I like very much. There are no gentlemen, everybody is on a footing".
In 1790, Fitzgerald turned down the command of an expedition against Cadiz offered him by Pitt, observing that the promotion would require him to vote in Parliament with the government and against his convictions. Instead, replaced by his brother Henry as MP for Athy, he was returned to the Irish House of Commons from County Kildare, frequently returning to visit family in England where he entered into intimate terms with his first cousin Charles Fox, with Richard Sheridan and other leading Whigs.
His Whig connections, together with his transatlantic experiences, predisposed Fitzgerald to sympathise with the doctrines of the French Revolution, which he embraced enthusiastically when he visited Paris in October 1792. He lodged with Thomas Paine and listened to the debates in the Convention. At a convivial gathering on 18 November, he supported a toast to "the speedy abolition of all hereditary titles and feudal distinctions", and gave proof of his zeal by expressly repudiating his own title, a performance for which he was dismissed from the army.
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