Maud de Prendergast, Lady of Offaly

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Maud de Prendergast Lady of Offaly Born 17 March 1242 Ireland Died before 1273 Noble family Prendergast Spouse(s) David FitzMaurice Maurice de Rochford Maurice FitzGerald, 3rd Lord of Offaly, Justiciar of Ireland Issue Juliana FitzMaurice, Lady of Thomond Amabel FitzMaurice Father Sir Gerald de Prendergast Mother Matilda de Burgh Maud de Prendergast, Lady of Offaly (17 March 1242 – before 1273), was a Norman-Irish noblewoman, the first wife of Maurice FitzGerald, 3rd Lord of Offaly, Justiciar of Ireland, and the mother of his two daughters, Juliana FitzGerald and Amabel. She married three times; Maurice FitzGerald, 3rd Lord of Offaly was her third husband.

Family Maud was born in Ireland on 17 March 1242, the daughter of Sir Gerald de Prendergast of Beauvoir (died 1251), and his second wife, Matilda, daughter of Richard Mor de Burgh and Egidia de Lacy.

Maud had an elder half-sister, Marie de Prendergast from her father's first marriage to Maud Walter. Marie was the wife of Sir John de Cogan by whom she had issue. Maud's paternal grandparents were Philip de Prendergast, Lord of Enniscorthy, Constable of Leinster, and Maud de Quincy, a granddaughter of Strongbow, through the latter's illegitimate daughter Basilie de Clare who married Robert de Quincy, Constable of Leinster.

Her great-grandfather, Maurice de Prendergast, Lord Prendergast had played a prominent part in the Cambro-Norman invasion of Ireland led by Strongbow, and was rewarded with much land in counties Wexford, Waterford, Tipperary, Mayo, Wicklow, and Cork.

Marriages and issue When she was a young child, Maud was married to, firstly David FitzMaurice, who died by 17 March 1249, which was her seventh birthday; her second husband was Maurice de Rochford with whom she had issue. Between 1258 and 28 October 1259, following Maurice de Rochford's death which occurred sometime before May 1258, she married her third and last husband, Maurice FitzGerald, 3rd Lord of Offaly, Justiciar of Ireland (1238–1286). He was the son of Maurice FitzGerald, 2nd Lord of Offaly and Juliana.

Together Maurice and Maud had two daughters:

Juliana FitzMaurice (c.1263 Dublin, Ireland - 24 September 1300), married firstly Thomas de Clare, Lord of Thomond, by whom she had four children; she married secondly Nicholas Avenel; she married thirdly Adam de Cretynges. Amabel FitzMaurice, married, but was childless. Maud died on an unknown date. In 1273, her husband Maurice married his second wife, Emmeline Longespee (1252–1291) but fathered no children by her.[4]

References

The Complete Peerage, Vol.VII, p.200

Burke, Bernard. "Prendergast Lineage", A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry, Harrison, 1895, p. 773.

Flood, William H. Gratton. History of Enniscorthy, Enniscorthy, 1898. p. 14 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

Though genealogists have long placed Emmeline as mother of Juliana (e.g. The Complete Peerage, Vol.VII, p.200), Emmeline married FitzGerald in 1273 when Juliana was already 10 years old, and her own heiress was Maud La Zouche, Baroness Holland, who was a granddaughter of her elder sister, Ela Longespee. Sources The Complete Peerage, Vol. VII, p. 200