Petty-Fitzmaurice
Family title
Marquess of Lansdowne, Earl of Kerry, Earl of Orkney, Lords Shelburne
Estate(s)
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Petty-Fitzmaurice (Marquess of Lansdowne) | This estate owes its origins to Sir William Petty, renowned cartographer, mathematician and scientist. He was granted extensive lands in south Kerry, formerly the property of the O'Sullivans, in the seventeenth century. He was also granted large tracts of land in counties Limerick, Cork, Kilkenny, King's County (county Offaly) and Westmeath. Petty's daughter Anne married Thomas Fitzmaurice of Lixnaw, first Earl of Kerry. Their grandson William Petty-Fitzmaurice, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, was created Marquess of Lansdowne in 1784. In the 1870s, the Munster estate of the Marquess of Lansdowne amounted to over 94,000 acres in county Kerry with 1,526 acres in county Limerick. This included property in the parishes of Dromod, Killinane and Prior, barony of Iveragh, county Kerry and in the parishes of St Nicholas, St Munchins and Killeely, North Liberties of Limerick and in the city itself. The Irish estate amounted to over 121,000 acres including property in Dublin, King’s and Queen’s County and Limerick. In the nineteenth century they were mostly absentee landlords. In the 1830s, the Ordnance Survey Name Books record James Hickson, of Landsdowne Lodge, Kenmare, as acting as agent for the Marquess of Landsdowne. Later in the century that role was undertaken by William S. Trench. |
| Fitzmaurice (Earl of Kerry) | Thomas Fitzmaurice, 1st Earl of Kerry (1668 - 16 March 1741), was the son of William FitzMaurice, 20th Baron of Kerry and Lixnaw. He married Anne Petty, the daughter of scientist and philosopher Sir William Petty and Elizabeth Waller, Baroness Shelburne, in 1692. The 1st Earl of Kerry had two younger brothers, William of Gallane, county Kerry, ancestor of the Fitzmaurices of Springfield Castle, county Limerick and John who had an only child Anne who married her cousin of Springfield Castle. In 1703 William Fitzmaurice of Gullane, county Kerry, bought the estate of Sir John FitzGerald in the barony of Connello, county Limerick for £5,008. Francis, the 3rd Earl of Kerry was mostly an absentee landlord, his estates being administered by agents including Christopher Julian. Dickson writes that he sold much of his Kerry estates to Richard Hare in the 1780s. With his death in 1818 the connection between the Earls of Kerry and Lixnaw came to an end. The title was inherited by the Marquis of Lansdowne of Derreen, county Kerry who owned 1,526 acres in county Limerick in the 1870s. |
| Fitzmaurice | Lord George Hamilton was created Earl of Orkney in 1696. He married Elizabeth Villiers and was succeeded by his daughter Anne (died 1756), the wife of William O'Brien, 4th Earl of Inchiquin. Their daughter Mary (died 1791) became Countess of Orkney. She was succeeded in the title by her daughter Mary (1755-1831) who married Thomas Fitzmaurice (1742-1793), son of John Petty, Earl of Shelburne, and was succeeded in the title by her grandson, Thomas John Hamilton Fitzmaurice (1803-1877). In the mid 19th century the Earl of Orkney held an estate in county Tipperary in the baronies of Eliogarty (parishes of Drom, Inch and Rahelty) and Ikerrin (Bourney and Templeree). The county Tipperary estate amounted to 7,877 acres in the 1870s. The Earl of Orkney also owned 1,642 acres in county Kerry and 1,438 acres in Queen's County (Laois). The Earl of Orkney held over a thousand acres of untenanted land in the Thurles area in 1906. |