Earl of Desmond wife Margery FitzAnthony. The title Earl of Desmond was first created for Maurice FitzGerald, 4th Baron Desmond in approximately 1329. Over time, according to English sources, the FitzGerald family became highly assimilated to the local Irish culture. The final Earl of Desmond of this creation was Gerald FitzGerald, the 15th (or, by some counts, the 16th) Earl. The FitzGeralds and Fitzmaurices to had resisted the Reformation of King Henry VIII and, after the failure of the first and second Desmond Rebellions, the 15th Earl was defeated and killed by forces loyal to Queen Elizabeth I on 11 November 1583. His
The Song of Dermot and the Earl The Song of Dermot and the Earl The Song of Dermot and the Earl () is an anonymous Anglo-Norman verse chronicle written in the early 13th century in England. It tells of the arrival of Strongbow in Ireland in 1170 (the "earl" in the title), and of the subsequent arrival of Henry II of England. The chronicle survives only in a single manuscript which was re-discovered in the 17th century in London. The work bears no title in the manuscript, but has been commonly referred to as "The Song of Dermot and the Earl" since G.H. Orpen in 1892 published