430 
Ellen Barry, widow of Thomas of Drogheda, and Margaret O’Bryen, 
widow of James, his son. I would give the vote to the younger lady, 
and I have not much doubt of the accuracy of the decision.” 
On the 26th November, 1833, Sir William sent me his “‘ original 
draft of the Desmond pedigree ;’’ and as he, equally with myself, con- 
sidered Sir Walter Raleigh’s authority unquestionable, I proceeded to 
investigate whether Margaret O’Bryen was not “‘ the pearl” we were%so 
anxiously seeking ; and a variety of circumstances seeming to lend their 
separate and concurring aid, a very possible case that the young widow 
became the old Countess was apparently made out; which having sub- 
mitted to Sir William Betham, he wrote me, on the 138th March, 1834— 
‘* T think your Margaret O’ Bryen must have been the old Countess ; 1t 18 
searcely possible that she could be any other, if you consider the dates and 
circumstances. Pelham must have been in error.” 
The paper, the result of this protracted inquiry, was read at the - 
Cork Cuvierian Society, and, in 1844, printed in the first volume of my 
‘‘ Olla Podrida.”” Some months since, I was informed that in the 
“ Quarterly Review” of March, 1853, the question of the old Coun- 
tess’s identity was clearly established, which, on referring to the 
volume, and, thanks to the very talented and entertaining writer of 
the able article, it certainly is, in the person of Kathrin, daughter of 
Sir John Fitz Gerald, Lord of Decies, who married Sir Thomas Fitz- 
gerald, of Drogheda, third son of Thomas, eighth Earl of Desmond. 
Sir Thomas succeeded as twelfth Earl of Desmond, being then seventy- 
six years old, the 18th June, 1529,—say 46 years after the death of 
Edward IV., Kathrin became his widow in 1580; so that her jointure,; 
instead being held from Edward IY.’s time, did not commence until 51 
years after his reign had closed. A record, discovered in the Rolls’ 
Office, Dublin, dated 5th August, 1575, and which clears up the long- 
puzzling question, is a surrender that she made of “the castell and 
town of Inchequyne” to Gerrot, the sixteenth earl, in which she de- 
scribes herself as ‘‘the ladye Kathrin, late Wief to Thomas, late 
Earle of Desmond.” There is every probability that this transaction 
was only a family arrangement, intended, under possible contingencies, 
to preserve Earl Gerrot’s interest in the property, and that the old Coun- 
tess continued in the occupation of the castle; and, as we shall see, after 
the earl’s forfeiture she was living there, with all her legal rights of 
jointure, undisturbed and acknowledged. 
Her paternity from the Decies’ branch is found recorded in the MS. 
of Sir George Carew, Harleian, No. 1425, at the British Museum; and 
in another MS., No. 626, of Sir George’s, in the Lambeth Library, that 
she died in 1604, 
From the manner in which the deed of 1575 had been mentioned, I~ 
understood that it was the original, and with the Ladye Kathrin’s auto- 
graph attached to it. I therefore requested my very kind friend, Dr. 
Aquilla Smith, who has more pleasure in conferring obligations ‘than 
even the most of us have in receiving, to take a drawing of the signa- 
ture of the old Countess, who at the execution of the deed would have 
