Gerald FitzGerald, 3rd Earl of Desmond
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Gerald FitzGerald, also known by the Irish Gaelic "Gearóid Iarla" (Earl Gerald), was the 3rd Earl of Desmond, in southwestern Ireland, under the first creation of that title, and a member of the Hiberno-Norman dynasty of the FitzGeralds, or Geraldines.
Gerald was made Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in 1367. In 1370, he was imprisoned by Brian O'Brien of Thomond. While in prison, Gerald wrote poetry in the Irish language, most famously the poem "Mairg adeir olc ris na mnáibh" ("Speak not ill of womenkind"). Indeed, Gerald was instrumental in replacing French with Irish as the preferred language of the Hiberno-Norman aristocracy, and typified the cliché among later Irish historians that the Geraldines were "more Irish than the Irish themselves."
In local legend, Gerald was romantically linked with the goddess Áine, a legend which drew upon a pre-existing local Celtic legend about liaisons between Áine and the King of Munster, but updated it with themes drawn from the Francophone courtly love poetry of Continental Europe, in particular the motif of the man who falls in love with a swan maiden.
After his disappearance in 1398, another legend grew up that Gerald sleeps in a cave beside (or under) Lough Gur, and will someday awaken and ride forth on a silver-shod steed to rule again in Desmond (or, alternatively, "save Ireland").
