Joan Fitzgerald, Countess of Ormond

Joan Fitzgerald, Countess of Ormond, Countess of Desmond (ca. 1509 or ca. 1514 – 2 January 1565) was a Norman-Irish noblewoman and heiress, a member of the Fitzgerald family, who were also known as the "Geraldines". She married three times. Her first husband was James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond, who had been proposed as a bridegroom for Anne Boleyn in 1522 to settle a dispute over the title and estates of the Earldom of Ormond. Her second husband was courtier Sir Francis Bryan. Her third marriage to Gerald FitzGerald, 15th Earl of Desmond brought peace to Ireland for a few years until he broke his truce with her eldest son Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond and warfare broke out between the rival Butler and Fitzgerald clans, who had been hereditary enemies for many generations.

Joan carried on an amicable correspondence with Queen Elizabeth I of England who recognised Joan's skill in diplomacy, and relied upon her to restore and keep the precarious peace in Munster.

Lady Joan was born in Desmond Castle, Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland in about 1509 or 1514, the daughter and heiress-general of James FitzGerald, 10th Earl of Desmond and Amy O'Brien. She had a younger sister, Lady Honora Fitzgerald (died 1577), who later married Pierce Butler.

Sometime before 21 December 1532, she married her first husband James Butler, who succeeded as 9th Earl of Ormond on 26 August 1539. James had been proposed as a bridegroom to his cousin Anne Boleyn in 1522 in an attempt to settle a dispute over the title and estates of the earldom of Ormond to which Anne's father, Sir Thomas Boleyn had a claim as his mother had been Lady Margaret Butler, eldest daughter of the 7th earl of Ormond. For reasons unknown, the marriage negotiations came to a halt and Anne later became the second wife of King Henry VIII of England.