Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare (1525 – 16 November 1585), also known as the "Wizard Earl" (a sobriquet also given to Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland), was an Irish peer. He was the son of Gerald FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Kildare and his second wife Elizabeth Grey, Countess of Kildare. FitzGerald became the sole male representative of the Kildare Geraldines at the age of twelve, after his half-brother, Silken Thomas, the tenth earl, was executed at Tyburn in 1537 with five of his uncles. He spent the next few years on the
Earl of Bessborough Earl of Bessborough Earl of Bessborough is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1739 for Brabazon Ponsonby, 2nd Viscount Duncannon, who had previously represented Newtownards and County Kildare in the Irish House of Commons. In 1749 he was given the additional title of Baron Ponsonby of Sysonby, in the County of Leicester, in the Peerage of Great Britain, which entitled him to a seat in the British House of Lords. The titles Viscount Duncannon, of the fort of Duncannon in the County of Wexford, and Baron Bessborough, of Bessborough, Piltown, in the County of Kilkenny,