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LOCAL HISTORY: PATRICK BOWEreviews The Knights of Glin: Seven Centuries of Change,Edited by Tom Donovan, Glin Historial Society, 463pp, €50
THE FITZGERALDS came to Ireland with the Anglo-Norman invasion in 1169. Since then, they have made many various and significant contributions to Irish life. One branch – the Fitzgeralds, Knights of Glin – have been recorded as resident in the same place in West Limerick for 700 years. Such an unusual circumstance is bound to arouse our curiosity, a curiosity that is well satisfied in the publication of this book. A second stimulus to our curiosity is the name – the Knight of Glin – by which the head of the branch is known. What is its origin and validity? The excellent opening chapters in the book explain that it is one of three titles – the others are the Knight of Kerry and the White Knight – that were probably conferred by one of the great Kildare Geraldine magnates on three of their vassals in the 13th century. They became inherited titles by prescriptive right in the second half of the 14th century.
