The Fitzgeralds of Dublin #1-3 by Lorna Peel

The reality, however, is that there is precious little love on display this was a deeply dysfunctional family, destroyed by privilege and lack of love. But by the time Gerald came of age, in 1872, change was in the air, and over the next 50 years nationalist revolutions, in land and politics, the first World War and the Irish War of Independence were paralleled by the family’s private experience of what is trumpeted in the book’s subtitle as including “love, debt and madness”.

Deposited in Somerset Record Office, Hermione’s letters have enabled Dooley, who has written extensively on the land question and the decline of Ireland’s big houses, to assess the private dimensions that accompanied the public crisis that afflicted the Anglo-Irish aristocracy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as social, economic and political change diluted its power, dominance and options.ĭescended from the Anglo-Norman FitzGeralds, the family had been in Kildare since the early 13th century by the late 17th century it was established at the heart of Anglo-Irish affairs. One of Ireland’s premier aristocratic families, the FitzGeralds lived for almost 300 years in the Palladian mansion Carton House, outside Maynooth, in Co Kildare.

The foundations for this absorbing book were made possible with the discovery of a cache of letters written by Hermione Duncombe, the wife of Gerald FitzGerald, the fifth duke of Leinster (1851-1893).

The Fitzgeralds of Dublin #1-3 by Lorna Peel