Catherine FitzGerald Countess Desmond [45991] ²⁵

  General Notes:

http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/FITZGERALD2.htm#Catherine%20FITZGERALD%20(C.%20Desmond)1

The Old Countess. See The Complete Peerage vol.IV,p.250,note a for a discussion of her age at death. The 'old' Countess of Desmond, daughter of Sir John Fitzgerald, lord of Decies. Became the second wife of Thomas Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond, some time after 1505. He died in 1534 at the age of eighty, leaving a daughter by her, so that her marriage is unlikely to have taken place after 1524. Sir Walter Raleigh <http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/WalterRaleigh(Sir).htm> in his History of the World (1614) stated that the 'old countess' was living in 1589 'and many years since'. That her death occurred in 1604 is stated in a manuscript of Sir George Carew <http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/GeorgeCarew(ETotnes).htm>'s preserved in Lambeth Library. In his Itinerary (1617) Fynes Morison states that in our time' she had lived to the age of 'about' 140, she was able in her last years to go on foot three or four miles to the market town, and only a few years before her death all her teeth were renewed. Sir John Harrington <http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/JohnHarrington.htm>, speaking in 1605 of the wholesomeness of the country, said that 'where a man hath lived to above 140 years, a woman, and she a countess, above 120, the country is likely to be healthy'. The story of her death being due to a fall from an apple, cherry or walnut tree is almost certainly apocryphal. That she lived to the age of 140 is, of course, highly unlikely, but it may reasonably be concluded that she reached at least 104 and may very well have lived well beyond that age.

Catherine married Thomas FitzGerald 11th Earl Desmond [45992] [MRIN: 551610901], son of Thomas fitzJames FitzGerald 7th Earl of Desmond [18462] and Ellice Barry [46005]. (Thomas FitzGerald 11th Earl Desmond [45992] was born in 1454, died in 1534 in Rathkeale and was buried in Youghal, County Cork, Ireland.)