Ireland 1786 George Fitzgerald is picking another fight…this
time it’s with the hangman.
For once he has a point …after all this is the third time today they’ve tried to
string him up.
Convicted of murder, a crowd of not so well-wishers have gathered at the scaffold to see one of
the most unpleasant men in Ireland finally get his come uppance.
Some will mourn the passing of such a colourful eccentric, relatives of those he has shot,
bullied or abused are a little less forgiving.
Fitzgerald could start a fight in a nunnery, he’ll probably headbutt St Peter at the
pearly gates.
He’s raging at his executioner now, dressed like a scarecrow because his own clothes got
ripped during a fight with his fellow prisoners in the cells.
“I want a decent suit in which to meet my maker” he demanded, so the wardens cobbled
together a worn pair of trousers, a waistcoat that that seen better days and someone’s
old hat.
Because of his high birth Fitzgerald’s been allowed to walk to the scaffold rather than
be led through a jeering crowd on the back of a cart.
Unfortunately, when they hauled on the rope it snapped (much to his amusement) so he had
to wait around for a couple of hours being jeered at anyway while they tried to find
another one.
When the out of breath jail flunky returned however it was discovered that the rope he’d
brought was several feet too long.
Fitzgerald just stood there with it coiled around his feet like some kind of idiot.
The crowd were in hysterics.
Maybe the third time is the charm.
Before he swings I wonder ..does Fitzgerald have an addled brain or is he really such
a cunt.
He was born into a noble family but his father (also a notorious rake) flaunted his mistress
in public so his humiliated mother took him and his brother to England.
He was educated at Eton and, like many, made up for being shorter and less well built than
his fellow man by being aggressive and quarrelsome.
I heard he fought his first dual at 16 against a man called Mr French – who it’s said
forgot to bring his powder horn with him and couldn’t load his pistol so he had to borrow
Fitzgerald’s.
Neither was injured during the exchange.
At 17 he joined the army and returned to Ireland as an officer of the 69th.
His time in Galway however was marred by his love of duelling, by the age of 24 he had
fought no less than eleven times.
On one occasion, he made improper and lewd advances to a local shop girl.
The outraged shop keeper - not being a gentleman - couldn’t challenge him himself but Fitzgerald
said if he found a man of quality to take his place then he would face him instead.
The shopkeeper ran outside into the street and stopped another officer of the 69th who
happened to be walking by.
He must have had his own grievances with Fitzgerald because he immediately agreed to the meeting.
The two faced each other with pistols – Fitzgerald’s opponent was the better shot.
The bullet struck Fitzgerald in the head and he collapsed in a pool of blood.
A frantic surgeon cut away a piece of his skull to remove pressure on his brain.
During the operation, a semi-conscious Fitzgerald berated him for ruining his wig.
When Fitzgerald’s father heard the news, he was so shocked that he accidently stabbed
a man who stopped to offer his condolence, through the stomach with a sword.
When he recovered his composure, - and presumably apologised - he then wrote his wayward son
completely out of his will.
Fitzgerald took six months to get on his feet again and carried the livid scar with him
for the rest of his life – perhaps his injury also affected his brain.
In 70 he got married to the beautiful and wealth Jane Connolly - He could be charming
when he wanted to be – and began to enjoy her £30,000 dowry.
His father – who by then had fallen on hard times asked for his financial help and Fitzgerald
generously agreed to give him £10,000…
IF he agreed to pay him £1000 a year for life and write him back into his will.
He then resigned from the army and moved to France.
Fitzgerald endeared himself to French society by gambling most of his money away in Parisian
gaming houses, being accused of using loaded dice, slapping the face a man to whom he owed
money - in front of the queen and running his sword through another chap who accidently
stepped on his dog outside a coffee house.
The marriage in tatters, his wife returned to England broken and penniless.
Fitzgerald stayed in Paris but was forced to join his soon to be ex-wife when the future
king of France very publicly had him thrown out of a gambling club for blatantly refusing
to pay any of his debts.
Even for Fitzgerald, challenging European royalty was not an option so he tried endearing
himself to London society.
He gambled and cheated and refused to pay his debts there too but the final straw came
when he hounded a young man into a dual on Ascot racecourse over a debt that HE was owed
but which had actually already been paid.
The terrified youth fired and missed so Fitzgerald made him stand waiting for the return shot
while he pretended to fix his pistol.
He then made the sobbing and trembling boy stammer out an apology before shooting him
in the shoulder and walking away.
With London loathing his company he took himself back to France to try his hand at horse trading.
While there, he steered another naive teenager into a gambling house run by an old army friend
called Major Baggs.
The boy was mercilessly fleeced but Fitzgerald and Baggs got into a disagreement over money,
and that could only end one way.
The two fought a dual over the border in Austria.
Baggs accused Fitzgerald of wearing a metal waistcoat so Fitzgerald stripped to waist.
Both pistols went off and as the smoke cleared Fitzgerald raised his second pistol to fire
again.
“I’m wounded” cried Baggs “But you’re not dead” replied Fitzgerald and shot him
again in the thigh.
Furious Baggs heaved himself up and rushed at Fitzgerald who took off across the fields
turning to fling his pistol into Baggs face.
Fitzgerald was then struck in the leg by his opponents second shot before both collapsed
into the grass.
With France loathing his company Fitzgerald retuned to Ireland with a brand-new limp to
add to his fetching scar.
Settled back at home and possibly feeling that in the past he had been too restrained
he gave the imps in his head full reign and embarked on a life of addled pated lunacy.
Striding around Dublin he would shout abuse at passes by hoping to provoke an argument.
Women would have the rings snatched from their fingers, men would find the wigs plucked from
their heads.
One of his favourite pastimes was to stand in the middle of narrow thoroughfares so people
coming the opposite direction had to walk in horse shit or jostle past him – which
would invariably result in a challenge.
During one duel which took place in broad daylight in the centre of town, cries went
up to separate the two swordsmen but others insisted that the dual continued as “one
would die, the other would hang for murder and the world would have to suffer two less
braggards.”
As it turned out neither died but one suffered a serious wound in the arse.
With Dublin loathing his company Fitzgerald took himself home to County Mayo where he
surrounded himself with a homemade militia assembled ostensibly to defend the area in
case of invasion by Napoleon but really, they were just a bunch of hired thugs who bullied
on his behalf.
So hated was he locally that he took to fox hunting at night with his quarry lit by blazing
torches.
If he felt any of his hunting companions were his social inferior (which was most of them)
he would have them flogged from the field.
He dispatched one ,Reverend O Mally with the words “go home you unwieldy porpoise”
Most bizarrely of all he adopted a pet “Russian” bear that he treated better than any human
being.
The two would travel together by coach with the bear disguised as an old woman.
Half way through the journey to the consternation of the other passengers Fitzgerald would rip
away the animal’s disguise and demand that they kiss it.
One fellow was so traumatised he leapt from the speeding vehicle with Fitzgerald laughter
ringing in his ears.
Jolly pranks aside Fitzgerald kept himself busy by instigating violent feuds with all
of his neighbours.
He accused one of rustling his cattle and the ensuing duel saw the two men rampaging
through the town of Castlebar destroying market stalls as they chased and battled each other
from one street to the next.
He also took Umbridge with a fellow landlord and his family, so much so than when he learned
of the good-natured wolfhound they kept as a much-loved pet, he visited their house,
rang the doorbell and when the dog came to see who it was, shot it dead.
This earned him the enmity of another famous duellist – a lawyer by the name of “Humanity”
Dick Martin.
He had fought over 100 times in his youth and had been known as “Hair Trigger Martin
on account of his quick temper.
A friend of the aggrieved family he vowed to challenge Fitzgerald the first chance he
got.
He would not have to wait long.
Fitzgerald and his father still didn’t get on.
After squandering his fortune and his allowance the ungrateful son wanted more of his family’s
money and took his father to court to get it.
The court ruled that two should live together which created a domestic atmosphere of almost
biblical unpleasantness.
Fitzgerald’s father refused to amend his will or hand over more than £1000 a year
so he knocked three of his teeth out, when he continued to refuse cash, Fitzgerald chained
him to his Russian bear, further refusal saw the old man imprisoned in a local cave - still
chained to the bear.
Word soon got out about the elderly gentleman’s perilous underground position and Fitzgerald
was tracked down and arrested.
Hair trigger Martin jumped at the chance to prosecute.
During the trail he mocked, sneered and belittled Fitzgerald so mercilessly that a meeting was
inevitable, but it would have to wait.
Fitzgerald (despite claiming that his father was “one of the worst men alive” ) was
found guilty fined £500 and sentenced to three years in prison.
Two weeks later he escaped by bribing his guards and returned home to find it had been
ransacked by all the people who hated him.
Desperate for money he approached his father who was still washing the cave moss out of
his hair.
“Of course, not” he shouted so Fitzgerald kidnapped him again and chained him up in
yet another subterranean location.
Both men were soon found by the authorities and Fitzgerald was led – still complaining
- to a secure prison cell.
On his release three years later, Hair Trigger Martin (who never forgot a promise) issued
him with a challenge.
Before the meeting, Fitzgerald had sent his dulling pistols ahead of him but the fellow
who was carrying them got drunk and didn’t turn up so, in fury he grabbed a pair of his
servant’s old pistols which were so rusty and worn that the trigger took all of his
effort to squeeze.
The two men faced each other their muzzles virtually touching…simultaneously, they
fired.
In an effort to avoid getting killed, Fitzgerald always adopted a somewhat unique duelling
stance.
This Involved stooping his diminutive frame to offer an even smaller target and at the
moment his opponent fired reaching out to the muzzle with his hand so any bullet would
have to travel up his arm before it reached anything vital.
He missed Martin, Martin hit him, both remained standing.
They fired again, this time both were hit and needed medical attention.
Honour was satisfied.
Afterwards Fitzgerald visited his bemused opponent as he recovered from a chest wound
and acted as if the two were the best of friends, this may have been because he had found a
final target for his fury.
Patrick McDonnal had recently been given command of The Mayo Legion of Volunteers – A position
that Fitzgerald believed was rightfully is.
He colluded with a crocked layer of his acquaintance to cook up a scheme whereby Mr McDonnal would
be arrested on trumped up charges and then shot “While attempting to escape.”
McDonnal and one of his friends were duly arrested and before he could ask “What’s
seems to the problem officer?”
McDonnal was shot in the head by another friend of Fitzgerald’s.
His companion however escaped and the scheme quickly became public knowledge.
They found Fitzgerald hiding in a linen chest under a pile of blankets.
The lawyer, the friend and Fitzgerald himself were charged with murder.
So now the man who never killed any of the 30 or more people he shot at in his disreputable
life is being topped for ordering someone else to pull the trigger.
Oh there he goes “Doing the Tybun Jig” Funny thing is, even while he’s kicking
and choking his life away he still looks bloody furious.