Robert FitzGerald, 17th Knight of Kerry (1717 – 5 December 1781) was an Irish politician, barrister and hereditary knight. He was the second son of Maurice FitzGerald, 14th Knight of Kerry and his wife Elizabeth Crosbie, second daughter of David Crosbie. He graduated with a

Bachelor of Law A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

and served then as Judge of the Admiralty Court. In 1741, he entered the

Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until the end of 1800. The upper house was the Irish House of Lords, House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, ...

and sat for

Dingle Dingle ( or ''Daingean Uí Chúis'', meaning "fort of Ó Cúis") is a town in County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The only town on the Dingle Peninsula (known in Irish as ''Corca Dhuibhne''), it sits on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coa ...

, the same constituency his older brother

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

had represented before, until his death. In 1779, he succeeded his nephew

Maurice Maurice may refer to: *Maurice (name), a given name and surname, including a list of people with the name Places * or Mauritius, an island country in the Indian Ocean *Maurice, Iowa, a city *Maurice, Louisiana, a village *Maurice River, a trib ...

Knight of Kerry Knight of Kerry (), also called The Green Knight, is one of three Hiberno-Norman Knight#Ireland, hereditary knighthoods, all of which existed in Ireland since feudal times. The other two were White Knight (Fitzgibbon family), The White Knight ( ...

. In March 1746, FitzGerald married firstly Lucy Leslie, daughter of John Leslie of Tarbert, County Kerry, and niece of

James Leslie (bishop) James Leslie was an eighteenth-century bishop of the Church of Ireland. Leslie was born in 1706 at Tarbert, County Kerry, son of James Leslie and Sarah Kelly, and educated at Trinity College Dublin. He was curate at Swords, County Dublin, then p ...

of Limerick.page 255
/ref> She died only four years later and he married secondly Catherine FitzGerald, second daughter of Thomas FitzGerald, 18th Knight of Glin in 1752. After the death of his second wife in 1759, FitzGerald married lastly Catherine Sandes, daughter of Lancelot Sandes in 1770 and had by her two sons and a daughter. FitzGerald died in 1781 and was succeeded in his title by his older son

References

(Ireland) {{DEFAULTSORT:Fitzgerald, Robert Irish knights

Robert The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' () "fame, glory, honour, prais ...

1717 births 1781 deaths Irish MPs 1727–1760 Irish MPs 1761–1768 Irish MPs 1769–1776 Irish MPs 1776–1783 Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Kerry constituencies Irish admiralty judges