What are YOU looking at! - George "Fighting" Fitzgerald 1786

Be provoked beyond reason by 18th century Ireland's most quarrelsome and violent bully boy - George "Fighting" Fitzgerald. 
Its a short tempered tale of animal disguise, head trauma, gratuitous musketry and good old fashioned insanity.

• What did Fitzgerald do to his father - twice!?
• How did he stand when facing an armed opponent?
• Should you  avoid him on a narrow street?
• Why should you not try and seduce his female travelling companion?

All these questions will be answered in episode 33 of Rogues Gallery Uncovered - The podcast of Bad Behaviour in Period Costume.

 A duellist, rebel and one of the most controversial figures in Irish history, he lived a life of scandal and violence among the Irish gentry. When he wasn’t duelling he was starting feuds, gambling and arguably murdering. If you like historic true crime with a hint of weirdness, buckle up for this episode. 

Thanks for listening. Stay Roguish!
Email: simon@roguesgalleryonline.com
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Transcript

Rogues Gallery Uncovered

Bad behaviour in period costume 

A non-judgmental FREE FOR ALL into the scandalous lives of history’s greatest libertines’ lotharios and complete bastards  

 This podcast contains adult themes, a touch of colourful language, CROSS DRESSING BEARS, CAVE ABUSE AND AN IRISH ACCENT SOME MAY FIND DISTURBING 

 WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT ?

Finding any excuse for a scrap with 18th century Ireland’s most argumentative bully 

 George “ fighting” Fitzgerald 

 Hello rogues and welcome to another episode of the gallery – a week later than id planned.

Id love to say it was because of some outrageously decadent distraction but the truth is I’d just bought a new phone and spent a disproportionate amount of time  beside myself with fury and confusion at having to re sign into all my old apps when id forgotten most of my passwords.

I’m a Luddite I know  - and don’t get me started on 2 step authentication.

 When I wasn’t swearing at big tech however I was feeling the warm glow of some fantastic comments from fellow rogues. 

Special mention must go to David Smith who got hold of me via the website – roguesgalleryuncovered.com to suggest I do something featuring the crusades – a hotbed of religious based roguery – which I will certainly do and to Brad Miller of New Zealand who suggested Jackamo cassonova – that’ll be a big one – and Marco Polo who apparently shagged his way across the silk road. 

Id also like to say a big thank you to everyone who commented on the Edward Sellon episode that I put up on youtube, - I will try and make a habit of that. 

Lovely words from lots of people that I’ve tried to thank personally in the comments, but if ive missed any I really appreciated hearing from you.

The gallery can be found on youtube, twitter, facebook and Instagram.

Feel free to “ check out my socials” and say hello 

Its nearly disclaimer time and while this isn’t the type of podcast where I share my opinions about trigger warnings – which might be more nuanced than you think -  I was reminded by a friend the other day of a news story from last year which if you weren’t aware of, you might be interested in 

Apparently the University of the Highlands and Islands have placed a “content warning” on Ernest Hemingway’s 1952 novel the old man and the sea because it contains “scenes of graphic fishing.” 

Whether that is still in place I have no idea.

And more importantly who is traumatised by deep sea angling?

Which leads me clumsily into this 

 The following tale is written in the present tense of the period in which its set…. and as such, may contain attitudes and opinions of the protagonists and their times which would today be considered unacceptable. 

As im not a psychotically violent 18th century Irish gentleman or an attendee of three hundred year old public executions those attitudes and opinions are OBVIOUSLY not mine.

 IRELAND 1786

George Fitzgerald is picking another fight…this time it’s with the hangman.

 For once though, 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 comeuppance.

 Some will mourn the passing of such a colourful eccentric although 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 to shreds during a fight with his fellow prisoners.

 “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 had seen better days and somebody’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 finally returned however, it was discovered that the rope he’d brought was actually 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’s the charm.

 Before he swings I wonder …does Fitzgerald have an addled brain or is he just plain evil?

 He was born into a noble family but his father (also a notorious rake) made the mistake of flaunting his mistress in public. 

Fitzgerald’s mother - understandably humiliated - took the young lad and his brother off to England to escape her shame.

 Educated at Eton, Fitzgerald made up for being shorter and less well built than his fellows by being overly aggressive and quarrelsome. 

I heard he fought his first duel at the age of sixteen against a man called Mr French – who it’s said forgot to bring his powder horn with him and because he couldn’t load his pistol, had to borrow one of Fitzgerald’s. 

 An inauspicious start to a lifetime of fighting, neither man, was injured during this exchange.

 At seventeen he joined the army and returned to Ireland as an officer of the 69th.  

His time in Galway however was marred by his now, almost obsessive, love of duelling - by the age of twenty-four he had fought no less than eleven times.

 On one occasion, he made improper and lewd advances to a local shop girl, outraging her employer. 

The shop keeper, - not being a gentleman - couldn’t challenge the lecherous swine himself but Fitzgerald said that if he could find a man of quality to take his place then he’d face him in his stead. 

 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 in his passion he stabbed a man through the stomach with a sword who had simply stopped to offer his condolences.

 After recovering his composure, - and presumably apologising to the man- 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 – I’m no sawbones but perhaps his injury also affected his brain.

 In 70’ he got married to the beautiful and wealth Jane Connolly  - Believe it or not he could be charming when he wanted to be – and began to enjoy her £30,000 dowry. 

 His father, by then, had fallen on hard times and asked his son for financial help. 

Fitzgerald generously agreed to give him £10,000 to get back on his feet but only If he agreed to pay him an additional £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 no less - 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 returned to England and 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 duel on Ascot racecourse. 

It was the young man who had been owed money (not by Fitzgerald) and he’d already been reimbursed but Fitzgerald provoked him by saying he should have called out the man who owed him as only a coward waits to be paid.   

 The terrified youth fired first 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 of his 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 their duel over the border in Austria.  

 Baggs accused Fitzgerald of wearing a metal vest so Fitzgerald stripped to the 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. 

Fury dulling the pain of his injuries, Baggs heaved himself up and blindly rushed at Fitzgerald who took off terrified across the field, turning only to fling his pistol into Baggs’ face. 

 Baggs however still had a shot left to fire and taking careful aim he struck Fitzgerald in the leg. Both men then crumpled to the ground like marionettes with clipped strings. 

 With France joining the growing list of countries that loathed 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 a little too restrained, he gave the imps in his head full reign and embarked on a life of absolute 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 meeting continue 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….can you guess which?

 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 who were really just a bunch of hired thugs Fitzgerald paid to bully the locals on his behalf.

 So hated was he, that he took to fox hunting at night to avoid coming into contact with anyone he had wronged ( which was everyone.) 

 If he suddenly decided that any of his torchlight hunting companions were his social inferior (which was most of them) he had them unceremoniously flogged from the field. 

He dispatched one of them, 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 overturning 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. In fact, such was his enmity that when he learned of the good-natured wolfhound they kept as a 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 antipathy of another famous duellist – a lawyer by the name of “Humanity” Dick Martin . 

He’d 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 - and he didn’t have to wait long.

 Fitzgerald and his father still didn’t get on. 

 After squandering his fortune and his allowance, the ungrateful son wanted even more of his family’s money and took his father to court to get it. 

The court ruled that the two should live together which created a domestic atmosphere of almost biblical unpleasantness. 

Fitzgerald’s father refused to further amend his will or hand over more than the agreed £1000 a year so George knocked three of his teeth out. 

 When he continued to refuse cash, Fitzgerald chained him to his pet Russian bear. 

Further refusal saw the old man imprisoned in a dank 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 couldn’t stand him. Desperate for money, he approached his father who was still washing the cave moss out of his hair. 

 The old man listened to his sons pitiful pleading and reacted as any reasonable man would by refusing to part with another penny and possibly hinting that he would rather assist the Devil himself.

 Chastened Fitzgerald took a moment to reflect on all the evil deeds of his past… then kidnapped his father again! - chaining 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, which he accepted without hesitation.

Before the meeting, Fitzgerald sent his duelling pistols ahead of him but the fellow who he had employed to carry them got drunk and didn’t turn up.

 Standing upon the field like jilted bridegroom, Fitzgerald furiously grabbed a pair of his servant’s old pistol -  which were so rusty and worn that the trigger took all of his effort simply 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 was out of his mind or that he had found a new and even greater target for his fury.

 Patrick McDonnal had recently been given command of The Mayo Legion of Volunteers  – A position that Fitzgerald believed was rightfully his.

 In order to oust McDonnal, Fitzgerald 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 killed “While attempting to escape.” 

 At first, all went according to plan, McDonnal along with one of his friends was arrested and before he was even given the chance to ask “What’s seems to the problem officer?” McDonnal was shot in the head.

 On seeing this his companion ran for his life and, outpacing his pursuers, managed to reach the local authorities. 

 Inquiries were made as to the identities of the murderers and it quickly became apparent who they were working for. 

The scheme and its shadowy architects had been revealed and quickly became public knowledge. 

 With the magistrates hot on his trail, Fitzgerald was finally found hiding in a linen chest under a pile of blankets.

 The lawyer, the man who did the shooting and Fitzgerald himself were all found guilty  of murder and sentenced to hang.

 Fitzgerald offered a passionate defence, brimming with righteous indignation saying that he had not intended kill McDonnal ( it was all the lawyers fault)  and that he’d never actually killed any of the thirty or more people that he’d shot in the course of his dishonourable career.

 The judge was unconvinced (or simply hated him) and the sentence was death.

They tell me he drank a whole bottle of port before being brought to the scaffold , which might explain his bravado.

I think he was hoping he’d be dead by now but all the messing about with the rope has meant that he’s had time to sober up.

He’s been blubbing and begging for forgiveness for what seems like ages – I wish they’d get on with it.

There he goes, his feet are a blur as he does the Tyburn jig.

Funny thing is, I almost felt sorry for him for a bit, but now that there’s no going back and he’s choking his life away, his face looks bloody furious again.    

That’s the Fitzgerald I remember – his feet are flailing all over place, knowing him, he’s probably trying to kick someone. 

 I suppose the big question about fighting Fitzgerald is “ did the head injury he received in his 20s result in his frankly appalling behaviour?”

It’s a tough call , if he was suffering from mental illness than perhaps we can be a little more forgiving but maybe he was just an objectionably entitled little shit who deserved everything that came to him – whatever the truth you’ve got to admire his dedication to ursine fashion and paternal imprisonment. 

If you’re wondering, by the way why he never challenged the king of France to a duel after he was chucked out of Paris – lets face it he challenged everyone else - it was because as a commoner the law wouldn’t allow it.. 

You also might be surprised to learn that after he dumped his first wife – after he’d spent all of her money of course – he married again although what became of her after his death is not clear.  

It is said that his only daughter - who had been totally unaware of her father’s unpleasant exploits  - died herself, of shock, when she read about them in a magazine,  8 years after his execution.

Parents really do fuck you up.

 Next time on rogues gallery uncovered 

I’m not sure….

I was going to do Catherine the great but she is such a big roguish subject that I want to do some more research on her before I put her in the gallery.

So the next rogue will be a disgraceful surprise 

If you want to get an advance heads up then sign up to the infrequent but fun packed newsletter by visiting roguesgalleryuncovered.com and becoming a lovable rogue. 

There is a missive going out to all LRs this weekend and ill announce the upcoming rogue there.

Actually there is one thing that perhaps you could help me with. As I’m a brit based in the UK a lot of my rogues are English or occasionally American – we have had a few French and Spanish ones but most Are UK and USA.

i would love to feature some rogues from asia, Africa, Australia, new Zealand etc – spread the disreputable net a little wider as I believe roguishness is universal.

So if you have any suggestions drop me line at simon@roguesgalleryonline.com – the address is in the show notes. 

I’m off now to continue shouting  incoherently at digital technology – have a great fortnight, stay roguish and ill see you yesterday.