Death Of The Duke Of Leinster, Grand Master Of Irish Freemasons.

DEATH OF THE DUKE OF LEINSTER , GRAND MASTER OF IRISH FREEMASONS .

I We have to announce with deep regret the passing away from this busy scene of the venerated Grand Master of Irish Freemasons . His Grace th _ Duke of Leinster , the premier

Duke of Ireland , died at Carton House , May-1 nooth , at noon on Saturday October ioth , in his 84 th year . The late distinguished and large-hearted

nobleman has been so long Grand Master of our Irish Sister Grand Lodge ( namely 61 years ) , that his loss will be much deplored , and his rule will be long remembered by our warm-hearted

brethren of " Erin ' s Green Isle . " Though our late lamented brother has never taken any active part iu public affairs , and has mainly confined his attention to the many

important duties connected with his large estates , and the amenities of hospitality aud the pleasant intercourse of family and social life , he has ever earned for himself the warm regard and attachment of all classes in Ireland .

The Times says , and no doubt says truly , that he was endeared to the people by the unassuming simplicity of his manners and the genuine urbanity and good nature which characterised his intercourse with the humblest as well as the

highest with whom he came in contact . His hospitality is gratefully remembered by his numerous guests , and is referred to iii gracious terms in the " Queen ' s Diary , " giving an account

of the Royal Visit to Ireland , in 1848 . We believe that under his kindly regime the Irish Grand Lodge has progressed , and been tided on by the same wave of material prosperity which

has swept over our English brotherhood . The only subject of regret we have , and which we feel bound honestly to express to-day is , that , the Freemason has never yet received

official acknowledgement or aid from the Irish Grand Lodge , though accounts of the Grand Lodge meetings have continuall y appeared in non-Masonic journals .

Let us hope that in this respect , we may witness a better state of things , aud we say this , because we think that it is always right to be honest and above-board in all our communications with the Craft .

We sincerely sympathize with our Irish brethren in the loss of their venerated Grand Master , and we feel sure of this , that his kindly courtesy

and his ever friendly and truly Masonic spirit will be long gratefully remembered by all who I knew him personally , and by all those over whom he ruled officially , so long and so well .

! The Times gives the following biographical notice : — The Most Noble Augustus Frederick Fitzgerald , third Duke of Leinster and Marquis

I of Kildare , and 22 nd Earl of Kildare , and Earl and Baron of Offaly , in the King ' s County , in the Peerage of Ireland , and also Viscount Leinster , of Taplow , in the county of

Bucking-I hamshire , in the Peerage of Great Britain , Lord-Lieutenant and Gustos Rotulorum of the county of Kildare , & c , was born at Carton-house , County Kildare , on the 21 st of August , 1791 .

Death Of The Duke Of Leinster, Grand Master Of Irish Freemasons.

He was the elder of the two sons of William Robert , second Duke , by the Honourable Emilia Olivia , only daughter and heiress of St . George Usher , Lord St . George ( a title now extinct ); he succeeded to his father ' s title in 1804 , when

' only a child , and at the time of his death had worn a coronet for a longer period than any other member of the English or Irish Peerage . It may be mentioned , also , that King George IV ., as Prince of Wales , stood sponsor at his

I baptism . At an early age he was sent to Eton , where he reckoned among his schoolfellows and formfellows Sir John Taylor Coleridge , the late Sir John Stuart Hippisley , General the Hon . Sir Edward Cust , the late Sir William Byam , the

late Sir Windham Carmichael Anstruther , the late Lord Clinton , Sir Edward J . Gambier , the late Duke of Marlborough , Lord Sondes , Sir Denis le Marchant , Sir J . G . Shaw Lefevie , the late Lord Carington , the Marquis of Donegall ,

and the late Duke of Buckingham . He took his seat in the Upper House of Parliament on attaining his majority , and , though he never took a very active part in the proceedings of the Legislature , yet he steadily supported those

enlightened measures which at that tune were only gradually winning their way with the country at large , and had but few advocates in the House of Lords . He was among those who constantl y supported the repeal of the Test and Corporation

Acts , the relaxation of the Penal Laws by the concession of Roman Catholic emancipation , and the passing of the first Reform Bill . He was not , however , much of an orator , and his Grace ' s name accordingly figured but rarely in the pages of Hansard's Delates .

Himself a Protestant by conscientious conviction , he was nominated , with the sanction and concurrence of the Roman Catholic Prelates in Ireland , one of the visitors of the College of St " Patrick at Maynooth , which stands not far from

the gate of his princely domain of Carton . Indeed , in spite of his liberal convictions and principles , the late Duke more than once said that he scarcel y cared to oppose Lords Itoden and Winchilsea when they proposed a Committee of

Inquiry into the working of Maynooth , because he knew , from his experience as a resident in its neighbourhood , that the College would com quite safely out of such an investigation . He was sworn a Privy Councillor for Great Britain

n 183 1 , and for Ireland in the same year ; and he was also for many years Grand Master of the Freemasons in Ireland . On account of the genuine liberality of his political and reli gious opinions , and his generosity as a landlord , his

Grace was most popular with the Irish peasantry and tenantry ; indeed , his personal popularity was scarcely affected by the question which recently arose with respect to the leases on his estates .

According to Sir Bernard Burke , the Fitzgeralds are descended from one "Dominus Otho , " who is supposed to have been one of the Gherardini of Florence ; and this idea is confirmed by the Latin form of the name "Geraldini "

assumed by his descendants . This noble passed into Normandy , and so into England , where he became a great favourite with Edward the Confessor . His son and successor , Walter , was recognised as a fellow-countryman by the

Normans on their arrival in England with the Conqueror ; he put the copingstone to his prosperity by his marriage with Gladys , the daughter of Gynfyn , Prince of North Wales ; and it was his grandson Maurice who , passing

over into Ireland with Strongbow , defeated the native Irish under Roderick O'Connor , and died at Wexford in 1 i 77 , not before he had established himself as a powerful lord in the island . His son Gerald was summoned to Parliament in 120533 Baron of Offaly ; and his son , the second Baron ,

who introduced the Dominican and Franciscan Orders into Ireland , was Lord Justice of Ireland . It is recorded of the sixth lord that when he lay a helpless infant in his cradle at the Castle of Woodstock an alarm of fire was given ; the child j was forgotten , and the servants , on returning to j

search for him , found that he had been carried off in safety by a pet ape or monkey , which animal the family ever after adopted as their crest . The life of this Lord Offaly is quite a romance iu itself , but for an account of it we must be content to refer our readers to the

pleasant pages of Sir Bernard Burke . He was created Earl of Kildare by Edward II ., and his descendant , Thomas , the seventh earl , Lord Deputy of Ireland , suffered attainder for his share in the rebellion of the Earl of Desmond , though he was afterwards pardoned and restored

in blood . His son Gerald , the eighth earl , commonly called " the Great , " was Lord Deputy of Ireland , and was made a Kni ght of the Garter in 1504 by Henry VIII . for his zeal and skill in suppressing a rebellion of the native chiefs under the Lord of Clanricarde . His son Gerald , the

ninth earl , also Lord-Deputy of Ireland , forcibly maintained the King ' s interests in what was then known as the "Pale , " ruling the rest of his Irish subjects as an independent native chief . His son Thomas , the tenth e-arl , raised a rebellion against his English Sovereign , and , having been

imprisoned in the Tower of London , was hanged , drawn , and quartered at T yburn , in February , l 53 t The story of this young and chivalrous I nobleman ' s attempt to raise the standard of 1 insurrection is one of the most interesting episodes 1 in history . The line of the representatives of I

the house of Fitzgerald was eventually continued by the descendantsof one of hfsyounger brothers , one of whom , Robert , the 19 th earl , was known to history as a statesman in the reigns of George I . and George II . It was his son and successor , James , 20 th earl—grandfather of the

nobleman so recently deceased—who was created a Peer of Great Britain , as Viscount Leinster of Taplow , in 174 6 , and , ten years later , was raised to the Irish dukedom . His eldest son was William Robert , the second duke , whom we have already mentioned as the father of tho subject of this memoir ; and his fourth son was the

ill-fated Lord Edward Fitzgerald , who died of wounds received in resisting his arrest on a charge of high treason in 1798 , and whose attainder was afterwards repealed in favour of the three children whom he left by his wife , so well known to English and French readers by her name of Pamela . 1

His Grace married , on the 16 th of June , 1818 , Lady Charlotte Augustus Stanhope , third daughter of Charles , third Earl of Harrington , and was left a widower in the month of February , 1859 . By her the Duke had issue a family of six children —two daughters , one of whom died an infant ,

and the other is Lady Jane Repton ; and four sons , Charles William , Marquis of Kildare , Lord Gerald , Lord Frederick ( who died young ) , and Lord Otho Augustus , late Controller of Her Majesty ' s Household . Lord Kildare , as his j eldest son , succeeds to the ducal and other S

honours and to the estates and representation of the family . The new Duke , who is a magistrate j and Deputy-Lieutenant for County Kildare , Colonel of the Kildare County Militia , and a £ Commissioner ot National Education in Ireland , & and who represented the county of Kildare in the

Liberal interest in Parliament from 1847 to 1852 , SJ was born in Dublin on the 30 th of March , 1819 . § He was educated at Christ Church , Oxford , j where he took his Bachelor ' s degree in 1840 . fi He was created in 1870 a Peer of the United £ j Kingdom , by the title of Baron Kildare . He | married in October , 18 47 , Lady Caroline Leveson- | j

Gower , third daughter of George Granville , K second Duke of Sutherland , by whom he has a g very numerous family . His eldest son , and heir B apparent to the dukedom , Gerald , Earl of Offaly , I who will now assume the courtesy title of Mar- I quis of Kildare , was born in Dublin in the month I of August , I 8 < I . I