James Fitzgerald (Irish politician)

James Fitzgerald (1742-1835), was an Irish politician, descended from the family of the White Knight. He was the younger son of William Fitzgerald, an attorney of Ennis, and younger brother of Maurice Fitzgerald, Clerk of the Crown for Connaught.

He was born in 1742, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1769 he was called to the Irish bar, and he soon obtained a large practice, and won a great reputation both as a sound lawyer and an eloquent pleader. In 1772 he entered the Irish House of Commons as member for Ennis; in 1776 he was elected both for Killybegs and Tulsk in Roscommon, and preferred to sit for the latter borough; in 1784 and 1790 he was re-elected for Tulsk, and in 1798 he was chosen to represent Kildare Borough in the last Irish Parliament. His eloquence soon made him as great a reputation in the Irish parliament as at the Irish bar, and he was recognised as one of the leading orators in the days of Grattan and Flood.

Though an eloquent speaker, Fitzgerald was not much of a statesman; he, however, supported all the motions of the radical parties, and in 1782 he made his most famous speech in proposing a certain measure of Catholic relief. In that year he married Catherine, younger daughter of the Rev. Henry Vesey, who was grandson of John Vesey, Archbishop of Tuam (ancestor of the Viscounts de Vesci), and cousin of Lord Glentworth.

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