page_title: FitzGerald dynasty
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: FitzGerald dynasty / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Emblem of the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62)
context_page_description: The FitzGerald / FitzMaurice dynasty is a Cambro-Norman and Anglo-Norman, and later Hiberno-Norman, aristocratic and royal dynasty. They have been peers of Ireland since at least the 13th century, and are described in the Annals of the Four Masters as being "more Irish than the Irish themselves" or Galls, due to assimilation with the native Gaelic aristocratic and popular culture. The dynasty has also been referred to as the Geraldines. They achieved power through the conquest of large swathes of Irish territory by the sons and grandsons of Gerald of Windsor. Gerald of Windsor was a Norman castellan in Wales, and he is the male progenitor of the FitzMaurice and FitzGerald dynasty.
  Gerald's Welsh wife Nest ferch Rhys is the female progenitor of the FitzGeralds and Fitzmaurices. She was the daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, last King of Deheubarth and through her the FitzGeralds and Fitzmaurices descend from the Welsh rulers of Deheubarth. The clan claim kinship with the Tudors who descended from the same Welsh royal line. Consequently, the Fitzmaurices and FitzGeralds are cousins to the Tudors through Nest and her Welsh family.
context_section_description: According to the 1890 Matheson report, Fitzgerald/FitzGerald was the 36th most common surname in Ireland.
  Fitzgerald/FitzGerald is the 692nd most frequent surname in the United Kingdom. The surname occurs most frequently in the following ten counties, in descending order, with the number of occurrences in parentheses: "1. Greater London, (500), Greater Manchester (191), West Midlands (176), Lancashire (130), Kent (118), Essex (117), West Yorkshire (113), Merseyside (108), Hampshire (84), and Surrey (76)."
  "Fitzgerald" (including "FitzGerald," as the survey was not case-sensitive), was the 390th most common surname in the 2000 United States Census. 73,522 Fitzgeralds were counted, with 27.25 Fitzgeralds per 100,000 members of the population. Respondents surnamed Fitzgerald had self-reported ethnicities of 88.03% non-Hispanic white only, 8.44% non-Hispanic black only, 0.32% non-Hispanic Asian or Pacific Islander only, 1.28% non-Hispanic Asian only, 1.43% of two or more non-Hispanic races, and 1.43% Hispanic.
  The FitzGerald dynasty was the subject of a poem called "The Geraldines" by Thomas Osborne Davis, the chief organizer and poet of the nationalist Young Ireland movement. The ill-fated romance of Thomas FitzGerald, 5th Earl of Desmond with Catherine MacCormac was the subject of the air "Desmond's Song" by the Irish poet Thomas Moore.
  Saint Patrick's Saltire, sometimes used to represent Ireland in modern flags, may have derived from the arms of the Geraldines.
  The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Fitzgerald in the United States Navy is named for Lieutenant William Charles Fitzgerald, USN. The Fitzgerald family coat of arms (a white shield with a red saltire) provides the foundation for the coat of arms for USS Fitzgerald.
  A variety of people, places, and businesses bear the name FitzGerald or Fitzgerald, including the FitzGerald crater on the far side of the Moon, named for physicist George FitzGerald.
caption: Badge of USS Fitzgerald
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