Fitzpatrick is an Irish surname that most commonly arose as an anglicised version of the Irish patronymic surname Mac Giolla Phádraig "Son of the Devotee of (St.) Patrick".
John FitzPatrick, 1st Earl of Upper Ossory, styled Lord Gowran from 1727–51, was an Anglo-Irish nobleman and politician from County Cork, Ireland.
The kings of Osraige reigned over the medieval Irish kingdom of Osraige from the first or second century AD until the late twelfth century. Osraige was a semi-provincial kingdom in south-east Ireland which disappeared following the Norman Invasion of Ireland. A number of important royal Ossorian genealogies are preserved, particularly MS Rawlinson B502, which traces the medieval Mac Giolla Phádraig dynasty back through Óengus Osrithe, who supposedly flourished in the first or second century. and one in the Book of Leinster. Recent analysis of ninth and tenth century regnal succession in Osraige has suggested that in peaceful times, kingship passed primarily from eldest to youngest brother, before crossing generations and passing to sons and nephews.
Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond, 1st Earl of Ossory also known as Red Piers, was from the Polestown branch of the Butler family of Ireland. In the succession crisis at the death of Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond he succeeded to the earldom as heir male, but lost the title in 1528 to Thomas Boleyn. He regained it after Boleyn's death in 1538.
During the Tudor conquest of Ireland (c.1540–1603), "surrender and regrant" was the legal mechanism by which Irish clans were to be converted from a power structure rooted in clan and kin loyalties, to a late-feudal system under the English legal system. The policy was an attempt to incorporate the clan chiefs into the English-controlled Kingdom of Ireland, and to guarantee their property under English common law, as distinct from the traditional Irish Brehon law system. This strategy was the primary non-violent method for Crown officials in the Dublin Castle administration to subjugate Irish clan leaders during the conquest. It was an unanticipated consequence to be required to pay fealty in currency instead of trade labor or commodities. The process of "surrender and regrant" thus created new, unfamiliar debt structures among the Irish, and these debts had social and political consequences.
Earl of Upper Ossory was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created on 5 October 1751 for John FitzPatrick, 2nd Baron Gowran, who later represented Bedfordshire in the House of Commons. He was the son of Richard FitzPatrick, who had been created Baron Gowran on 27 April 1715, also in the Peerage of Ireland. Lord Gowran had represented Harristown and Queen's County in the Irish House of Commons before his elevation to the peerage. The first Earl's son, the second Earl, also sat as Member of Parliament for Bedfordshire and was Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire. In 1794, he was created Baron Upper Ossory, of Ampthill in the County of Bedford, in the Peerage of Great Britain. However, all three titles became extinct on his death in 1818.
Baron Castletown, of Upper Ossory in the Queen's County, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 10 December 1869 for John FitzPatrick, the former Liberal Member of Parliament for Queen's County. He was the illegitimate son of John FitzPatrick, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory.
John Wilson FitzPatrick, 1st Baron Castletown PC was an Anglo-Irish Liberal politician.
John FitzPatrick, 2nd Earl of Upper Ossory FRS DL, styled Lord Gowran from 1751–8, was an Anglo-Irish peer, soldier, and member of parliament.
Barnaby Fitzpatrick (c.1478–1575) was the last person to have claim to the kingship of Osraige; forfeiting his ancestral title in favour of being created the first Lord Baron Upper Ossory by King Henry VIII of England, by patent dated 11 June 1541, as part of the King's policy of Surrender and regrant. Barnaby Fitzpatrick was subsequently knighted on 1 July 1543.
Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 2nd Baron Upper Ossory, was educated at the court of Henry VIII of England with Edward, Prince of Wales. While he was in France, he corresponded regularly with King Edward VI. He was active in suppressing Wyatt's rebellion in 1553. He went home to Ireland, where he would have a lifelong feud with the Earl of Ormonde. His wife and daughter were abducted in 1573 by the Grace family, supposedly at Ormonde's instigation. He killed his cousin, the rebel Rory O'More in 1578.
Upper Ossory was an administrative barony in the south and west of Queen's County in Ireland. In late Gaelic Ireland it was the túath of the Mac Giolla Phádraig (Fitzpatrick) family and a surviving remnant of the once larger kingdom of Ossory. The northernmost part of the Diocese of Ossory and medieval County Kilkenny, it was transferred to the newly created Queen's County, now known as County Laois, in 1600. In the 1840s its three component cantreds, Clarmallagh, Clandonagh, and Upperwoods, were promoted to barony status, thereby superseding Upper Ossory.
Mac Giolla Phádraig is a native Irish dynastic surname which translates into English as "Son of the Devotee of (St.) Patrick". In the medieval period, the Mac Giolla Phádraigs were hereditary kings of Osraige; today, the anglicised version of the name is commonly "Fitzpatrick".
Florence Fitzpatrick, 3rd Baron Upper Ossory, was the third son of Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 1st Baron Upper Ossory and his wife Margaret Butler, and inherited the title upon the death of his older brother Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 2nd Baron Upper Ossory in 1581. He married Catherine O'More, daughter of Patrick O'More of Abbeyleix, and had six children, including his son Teige, who succeeded as 4th Baron, and Joan who married John Butler of Dunboyne, by whom she was the mother of Edmond Butler, 3rd/13th Baron Dunboyne.
Teige Fitzpatrick, 4th Baron Upper Ossory (d. December 1627) was the son and heir of Florence Fitzpatrick, 3rd Baron Upper Ossory, by his wife Catherine O'More. He married Joan Butler, the daughter of Sir Edmund Butler of Cloughgrenan.
Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 5th Baron Upper Ossory was the son and heir of Teige Fitzpatrick, 4th Baron Upper Ossory.
Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 6th Baron Upper Ossory, was the heir and successor of Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 5th Baron Upper Ossory. The eldest son of Barnaby Fitzpatrick by his wife Margaret Butler, he took his seat in Parliament on 16 March 1639. He married Catherine Everard, daughter of Sir Edward Everard, and his heir was his eldest son, Barnaby.
Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 7th Baron Upper Ossory, was the eldest son, heir and successor of Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 6th Baron Upper Ossory by his wife Catherine Everard.
Anne FitzPatrick, Countess of Upper Ossory, formerly Anne FitzRoy, Duchess of Grafton, was an English noblewoman and the first wife of Augustus Henry FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton. Grafton divorced her while serving as prime minister and while he was publicly engaging in an affair with Anne Parsons.
Mary Fox, Baroness Holland, known as Lady Mary Fox from 1766–74, was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat from the Mac Giolla Phádraig dynasty and Fox family. She is best known for being the portrait subject of several notable 18th-century artists, including Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds.
