Maurice Fitz Gerald
- Born: Abt 1100, Castle Carew, Pembrokeshire, Wales 141
- Marriage: Alice de Montgomery 220
- Died: 1 Sep 1176, Wexford, Kildare, Ireland about age 76 141
 General Notes:
~ Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd Edition, Vol. VII, "The Geraldine" pedigree chart, p. 200, married to Alice de Montgomery, and died 1176.
~ Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd Edition, Vol. X, pp. 12, footnote (e), the ealier addition of Cokayne's Complete Peerage, gave Gerald's wife as the daughter of Arnulf de Montgomery, but he was only a baby when Arnulf was exiled in 1102. 141
Information about this person:
• Background Information. 727
Maurice Fitz Gerald, the second son, was one of the adventurers with Richard Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke in his conquest of Ireland in 1170. He and Robert Fitz Stephen landed two years before and took Weishford, the first colony of English settled in Ireland. Maurice became the ancestor to serval noble families which flourished in that kindom, particularly the Earls of Kildare.
~The Baronetage of England, Vol. I, p. 32
• Background Information. 141
Maurice Fitz Gerald, younger son, born about 1100, was the Lord of Lanstephen in Wales. His brother, Bishop David, granted him the Stewardship of St. Davids hereditarily. Under Stephen [between 1136 and 1146] the sons of Gerald were hard pressed by the Welsh in their effort to dislodge the Norman interlopers from the lands they had seized. Maurice's went to Ireland on the promise, in 1167, of Dermont Mac Murrough, was the promise, in 1167, of Dermot MacMurrough, the dispossessed King of Leinster, to give Wexford to him and to his half-brother, Robert Fitz Stephen, if they would help him to regain the kingdom, a promise which he duly honored. In Ireland, Maurice and his descendants flourish. Preceded by Fitz Stephen, and accompanied by his nephew Raymond, Maurice landed at Wexford in 1169 with two ships of armed followers, and with the aid of his Norman allies Dermot recovered Dublin. The coming over of Henry II, and the political dispositions, which he made, fettered the progress of the Geraldines; although at his departure [Easter 1172] the King left Maurice one of the three keepers of Dublin. After spending some time in Wales, Maurice returned to Ireland, where the Keeper, Earl Richard, Strongbow, was consolidating the Normans in the face of the Irish by making them grants of land in fee, and by arranging marriages between members of the factious families. There is no record of his marriage. He d. 1 Sep 1176, at Wexford.
~ Cokayne's Complete Peerage, 2nd Edition, Vol. X, pp. 11-12
• Background Information. 991
Maurice died in September 1177 at Wexford and was buried in the Abbey of Grey Friars. He had married Alice de Montgomery, daughter of Arnulph, fourth son of Roger de Montgomery. By this marriage he had four sons and one daughter:
Gerald, first Baron of Offaly.
William, Baron of Naas, to whom his father left the lordship of Naas. He married Alcia, or Basilia, sister of Strongbow, but left no son.
Thomas, surnamed "the Great." He married Ellinor, daughter of Sir William Morrie, and with her obtained extensive property in Munster. He was the ancestor of the Earls of Desmond, the White Knight, the Knight of Glyn, the Knight of Kerry, and the Mackenzies. He died in 1213.
Alexander, died without issue.
Maurice, died without issue.
Nesta, married in 1175, Hervey de Clare de Montemaresco, uncle of Strongbow.
~ The Earls of Kildare, p. 9
Maurice married Alice de Montgomery, daughter of Arnulf de Montgomery and Lafracota O'Brien.141 (Alice de Montgomery was born in 1115 in Munster, Ireland.)
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