# Brighid Nic Gearailt

Bridget FitzGerald, Countess of Tyrconnell (Irish: Brighid Nic Gearailt; c. 1589 – 1682), also known as Brighid Chill Dara (Brighid of Kildare), was an Irish poet and noblewoman.

## Biography

Bridget FitzGerald was born circa 1589. Her parents were Henry FitzGerald, 12th Earl of Kildare, and Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Nottingham. When her father died in 1597 she was sent to live with her grandmother, Mabel Browne, Countess of Kildare, in Maynooth. She went on to marry Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, at some point after 1603 when she was around fourteen. Her son, Hugh Albert O'Donnell, was born in 1606 in Maynooth and became known as the 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell, having inherited the title upon his father's death in 1608, and long before the attainder of 1614.
Bridget married Rory O'Donnell around Christmas 1606. Their only son, Hugh Albert, was born in October 1606. Due to increasing hostility from the English nobility, Rory fled Ireland in September 1607 whilst Bridget was pregnant with their second child. It was apparently a "snap decision", and as Bridget was staying at her paternal grandmother's Maynooth estate at the time, far away from the point of departure in Rathmullan, she was left behind. Rory was joined by about ninety people - his extended family (including Hugh Albert), the family of wartime ally Hugh O'Neill, and various followers.
Bridget was pregnant when her husband fled the country in the Flight of the Earls with his son. There is evidence that her husband tried to have her join him in Europe but that the English authorities prevented it. Bridget went to England where their daughter Mary was born. Rory died in Rome on 28 July 1608.
When Bridget learned of her husband's departure, she was expected to deliver the baby within two weeks. Rory did not intend to abandon her, assuming she would reunite with him in Continental Europe at a later time. According to Rory's messenger Owen MacGrath, "[Rory's flight was not] for want of love... if [he] had known sooner of his going, he would have taken [Bridget] with him." Nevertheless, nineteen-year-old Bridget was distressed and furious by her husband leaving with no warning.
MacGrath attempted to persuade Bridget to leave Ireland a few weeks after the flight, though she refused. Bridget's mother, Lady Kildare, had advised her to cooperate with the English. Bridget never saw her husband or son again; Rory died of a fever in 1609.
Bridget presented her daughter at the English court with a personal appeal to King James I. Bridget sufficiently roused the king with an emotional telling of her plight and financial troubles, and he granted Bridget a pension of £200 from Tyrconnell's escheated estates.
Mary was placed under the patronage of the King and Bridget was sent back to Ireland.
In 1609, Bridget returned to her family's estates in Kildare. She raised Mary there as a Catholic.
In 1619 Bridget remarried to Nicholas Barnewall, 1st Viscount Barnewall from Turvey, County Dublin. They had nine children.
She wrote in Irish, but only one of her poems has survived, a work in an elegant classical style from about 1607.
Bridget died in 1682, at the age of ninety.