The Fitzgeralds of Little Island

The Dawn of the Fitzgeralds on Little Island (12th Century)

In the late 12th century, Ireland was in turmoil. The Norman arrival from 1169 to 1171 redrew the political map, toppling Gaelic dynasties and binding others into alliances through marriage, treaties, or sheer military force. Among the prominent new lords were the Fitzgeralds — an Anglo-Norman dynasty with ancestral ties to the nobility of Wales and Normandy.

Closely allied to Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke — “Strongbow” — the Fitzgeralds were both his kin and trusted supporters. When Strongbow’s forces captured Waterford in 1170, they aided in securing Norman control. Their loyalty earned them fertile lands and strategic holdings, the most coveted being Little Island — a wooded, pastoral jewel in the tidal clasp of the River Suir.

Its position was deliberate. The Suir, navigable deep inland, served as both a commercial lifeline and a military route. Control of an island mid-channel meant dominance over the waterway and approaches to Waterford city. For the Fitzgeralds, it was not merely a gift but a responsibility — a vantage point from which to extend power and safeguard their domain.

They soon began building a Norman keep, the hallmark of feudal authority. On the island’s highest rise, a square stone tower took shape, its massive blocks ferried by boat and its walls several feet thick to deflect arrows, siege weapons, and flames. Narrow slits served as defensive windows, while a lead roof gave durability and fire resistance, enabling it to endure long sieges.

This was no ordinary residence; it was a fortress, a declaration in stone that the Fitzgeralds had come to stay. From its battlements, sentries could watch the Suir’s silver sweep, the smoke of Waterford upriver, and vessels moving toward the port. Its silhouette became a landmark for sailors — warning foes, reassuring allies.

From this stronghold, the Fitzgeralds began weaving themselves into the fabric of south-eastern Ireland, not as passing conquerors but as lords whose rule was as solid as the rock beneath their tower. Over centuries, the keep would be rebuilt, enlarged, and embellished, yet its foundation — in both stone and legacy — was laid in the 12th century, when power was measured in acres, loyalty, and the span of one’s walls.

Feasts, Power, and the Rise of a Dynasty (15th–16th Centuries)

By the 1400s, the Fitzgeralds of Little Island had long outgrown their original role as military custodians of the Suir. Their stone keep had become a tower-house — still defensible, but increasingly built for comfort and display. In an era where architecture was a language of status, they spoke fluently.

The great hall became their arena of influence. Trestle tables groaned with roasted meats, salmon from the Suir, and imported delicacies ferried upriver. Beeswax candles lit the space, harp music played, and beneath the chatter flowed deals, alliances, and quiet power plays. Guests included Anglo-Norman lords, Gaelic chieftains, churchmen, and Waterford’s merchant elite.

These gatherings weren’t just celebrations — they were strategy. In a culture where honour and generosity defined status, a lavish banquet could secure loyalty as effectively as a sword.

And the sword was still in reach. The Fitzgeralds were tightly allied with the Earls of Desmond, a connection that tied them to the period’s major rivalries — especially the infamous 1565 Battle of Affane. Though the fighting took place far from Little Island, the fallout reached them. The Desmond defeat and capture of Gerald FitzGerald damaged ties with the Crown and foreshadowed the bloody rebellions ahead.

For the Fitzgeralds, it was a warning. Their wealth and Waterford connections offered some insulation, but not immunity. Balancing local influence with royal authority required constant vigilance.

Still, they adapted. The island remained a hub for diplomacy and trade — a place where political winds could be read over shared wine and quiet conversation. The Suir, as always, served both as buffer and bridge, keeping them connected yet apart.

By the century’s end, Little Island stood for more than land or lineage. It was a seat of influence where the Fitzgeralds led not by force, but from the head of the table — confident, calculating, and in command.

Transformation and Restoration (19th Century Renaissance)

By the dawn of the 1800s, the centuries-old Norman keep — once the Fitzgeralds’ stronghold — showed its age. Its thick walls still stood firm, but damp crept into the stone, floors sagged, and the narrow slit windows admitted more cold than light. For a family accustomed to influence and refinement, the castle’s medieval austerity no longer matched their ambitions.

The turning point came with Mary Frances Fitzgerald (1775–1855), a commanding figure in Irish society with a keen sense of lineage. Celebrated for her beauty and intellect, she was once engaged to Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, before famously breaking it off to marry her cousin, John Purcell, in 1801 — a union as strategic as it was personal, keeping the estate within trusted hands.

When she inherited in 1818, her husband adopted her surname, becoming John (Purcell) Fitzgerald — a symbolic act preserving the family’s primacy on Little Island. Together they presided over a renewed era of hospitality, though it was their descendants who would embark on the most ambitious building programme in the island’s history.

In 1849, John began a careful restoration of the central tower, rebuilding on the footprint of the original keep. He preserved its fortress-like character while opening interiors to light, adding larger windows and improving circulation. The result was both comfortable and imposing — a residence worthy of entertaining in style, yet still anchored in medieval gravitas.

Half a century later, Gerald Purcell-Fitzgerald (1865–1946) carried the vision further. Engaging London architect William Henry Romaine-Walker, noted for grand country houses, he commissioned a Neo-Gothic mansion to envelop the tower. Completed in 1895, it was a masterwork of integration: east and west wings in finely dressed stone, pointed arches, battlements, and mullioned windows flooding the once-gloomy rooms with light. Inside, oak panelling, ornate fireplaces, and high ceilings reflected late-Victorian opulence.

Adding character to this expansion were gargoyles — whimsical stone sentinels said to have come from Castle Irwell in Manchester via a female ancestor. Perched along the parapets, they gave the castle a playful flourish amid its grandeur, while nodding to deep European roots.

By century’s end, Little Island had transformed from martial bastion to a harmonious blend of medieval foundation and Victorian splendour. Visitors arriving by boat in the 1890s no longer approached a fortress but a stately home — gardens softening its towers, windows glowing with welcome, and owners confident in a legacy eight centuries in the making.

Edward FitzGerald: The Poet of Persia

Among those bearing the Fitzgerald name, few achieved a legacy reaching far beyond Ireland as did Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883). Born into wealth in Suffolk, England — from a branch of the family linked through the wide web of Norman-Irish kinship — Edward’s life was marked by quiet eccentricity and intellectual depth. Though his days unfolded far from Little Island, he remained part of its extended heritage, his literary triumph becoming a cultural jewel in the family crown.

Unlike his medieval forebears, Edward’s conquests were of the mind. Shunning the political careers expected of his class, he moved in the company of poets, scholars, and thinkers. In the drawing rooms and libraries of Victorian England, he befriended literary giants such as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Thomas Carlyle. These friendships nourished his talent, but it was his fascination with Eastern literature that defined his place in history.

This fascination culminated in The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Published anonymously in 1859, his version was less a literal translation of the 11th-century Persian quatrains than a poetic reimagining. Edward condensed, reshaped, and infused the verses with his own reflective, often melancholic voice. The result — 75 quatrains meditating on fate, love, wine, and life’s brevity — would eventually captivate the English-speaking world.

At first, the Rubáiyát passed almost unnoticed. But once embraced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and other artistic circles, it spread rapidly. By the century’s end, it was among the most quoted works in English. Some critics even claimed his rendering surpassed the beauty of the original Persian — a contentious view, yet enduring proof of his artistry.

Edward’s later life was reclusive, spent tending his garden and sailing his small boat. Yet his Fitzgerald heritage remained a quiet source of identity. In family lore, he represented a different kind of legacy: not forged in battle or architecture, but in the power of language. If earlier Fitzgeralds wielded swords and the Purcell-Fitzgeralds rebuilt castles, Edward built his own fortress in verse — one to outlast even the stones of Waterford Castle.

Today, the Rubáiyát endures in countless editions, its lines engraved on monuments, quoted at celebrations and farewells, and woven into popular culture. For the Fitzgerald story, it is proof that influence can be measured not only in land and power, but also in the enduring reach of the written word.

The End of an Era and Transition (20th Century)

For nearly eight centuries, the Fitzgerald — later Purcell-Fitzgerald — name was inseparable from Little Island. Generation after generation walked its lawns, looked out from its battlements, and hosted feasts in its great hall. But by the mid-20th century, the burden of maintaining such an estate in a changing Ireland had grown immense.

The last family member to hold the property was Mary Augusta de Lisle Purcell-Fitzgerald (1908–1968), a woman of cosmopolitan taste and aristocratic bearing, raised with a deep sense of her role as custodian of a legacy stretching back to the Norman Conquest. Educated in Europe, she travelled widely before studying in Italy, where she met and married Prince Maria d’Ardia Caracciolo of the Neapolitan nobility.

Their life together centred not on Little Island but in Dublin, where Mary Augusta became a patron of the arts, moving in literary and cultural circles. The marriage added an Italian princely title to the Fitzgerald story but marked a shift away from direct stewardship of the estate. The castle, with its mounting upkeep, became more an ancestral relic than an active home.

By the early 1960s, the pressures were acute. Post-independence Ireland was unkind to large private estates: taxes rose, agricultural returns were modest, and historic properties demanded more in maintenance than they earned. Like many landed families, the Purcell-Fitzgeralds faced stark choices — adapt, sell, or watch the estate decline.

In 1966 (though some accounts suggest 1958 marked the start of new ownership), Mary Augusta sold Little Island and Waterford Castle to the Igoe family. The sale ended one of the longest continuous relationships between a family and estate in Irish history.

Milk to Gaultier — A Mid-Century Rhythm of Island Life

In the 1950s, long before glasshouses or golf courses, Little Island still pulsed with the rhythms of a working farm. Under the lease of John and Betty Williams, a herd of forty cows grazed in the shadow of Waterford Castle. Each morning, fresh milk was carried across the River Suir to the Gaultier Creamery co-op, a lifeline of the rural south-east.

The journey was as traditional as it was laborious: the churns were loaded into a Prong, a stout local rowing boat of the Waterford estuary, and ferried over the current. On the far shore, they were collected and hauled to the creamery, where they joined the produce of neighbouring farms.

This daily ritual tied the island’s fortunes to the wider farming community, just as it had been for centuries. Even as Ireland edged into modernity, the Prong and the churns recalled an older rhythm of self-reliance and neighbourly connection — the milk run across the Suir, steady as the tide itself.

The Island after the Fitzgeralds

When the Fitzgeralds finally relinquished Little Island, its destiny passed to the Igoe family — a change that marked not just new ownership but a complete reimagining of the island’s purpose. Where generations of Fitzgeralds had presided over banquets, hunts, and the affairs of the gentry, the Igoes saw potential for a very different venture: horticulture.

Originally from County Mayo, with agricultural roots and business experience, the Igoes recognised the island’s unique advantages. Sheltered in the King’s Channel, it was naturally protected from harsh coastal winds. The south-east’s mild climate and fertile, well-drained soils offered ideal growing conditions. While the Fitzgeralds had used this land for grazing and small-scale farming, the Igoes set out to build a modern, export-driven enterprise.

They swiftly installed five acres of glasshouses — gleaming structures of steel and glass that shone in the sun by day and glowed warmly at night. Inside, chrysanthemums, tulips, and roses thrived in controlled conditions, destined for markets far beyond Ireland. The investment placed Little Island among the region’s most advanced horticultural sites.

Beyond flowers, the Igoes cultivated outdoor crops such as salad greens, daffodils, raspberries, and asparagus, rotating fields to maintain soil vitality. They also had 50 acres of apples and pears and 40 acres of soft fruits. At peak production, the island bustled with workers planting, harvesting, packing, and shipping — creating valuable employment for the local community.

Transport, long a challenge for island life, was transformed by a purpose-built chain ferry from the Verolme shipyards in Cork. This innovation allowed vehicles to roll aboard and cross in minutes, ending the isolation that had shaped the island’s history while preserving its physical separation.

Though their approach was practical, the Igoes respected the estate’s heritage. The castle was repaired and modernised without losing its historic charm, and former workers’ cottages were restored, including “Seaford” near the jetty for the ferryman. Their tenure bridged centuries — maintaining the land’s productivity while safeguarding its architectural legacy.

In their hands, Little Island entered a new era: no longer a seat of feudal power, but a thriving, working estate whose hum of glasshouse fans and churn of ferry chains replaced the music of banquet halls, yet kept the island’s lifeblood flowing.

Subsequent Owners and the Road to the Hotel Era

Following the industrious Igoe years, Little Island entered a period of changing hands, each new owner leaving a distinct imprint — much like the successive layers of stone in the castle walls.

In the mid-1970s, the estate passed to the Farren brothers, whose focus was commercial tomato production. They refined the glasshouse operations, experimented with new cultivation techniques, and upgraded roads and fencing throughout the island. Their tenure kept Little Island active in agriculture, balancing tradition with innovation.

By the late 1970s, the island’s role shifted again when Roger Shipsey, a pedigree dairy farmer from Dunmore East, leased the property. Shipsey recognised the island’s natural advantage as a bio-secure location — the surrounding waters forming a barrier against disease. He replaced the hum of glasshouse fans with the rhythms of dairy farming. Under the shadow of medieval battlements, his prize herd grazed, and milk was ferried daily to the mainland, echoing an agricultural continuity that reached back to the Fitzgeralds’ earliest days. Eventually, Shipsey moved from tenant to owner, anchoring his operations firmly in the island’s fertile pastures.

Yet the castle’s grandeur and the island’s unique setting hinted at another destiny. In 1987, hotelier Eddie Kearns acquired the property with a vision to transform it into a luxury hospitality destination. Appreciating its extraordinary blend of medieval fortifications and Victorian elegance, Kearns approached the project as both preservation and adaptation.

Over the following year, the castle was prepared for its new role. The medieval tower remained at the heart of the structure, while the 19th-century Neo-Gothic wings provided grand public rooms and suites. Oak panelling was polished, fireplaces restored, and Fitzgerald heraldry retained, allowing guests to step into a living chapter of Irish history.

In 1988, Waterford Castle opened as a luxury hotel. Guests arrived by private ferry, just as they had in the Fitzgerald era, but were greeted with modern comforts and professional hospitality. The lounges, drawing rooms, and dining halls — once the stage for political intrigue and family feasts — became places for afternoon tea, fine dining, and quiet reflection over views of the River Suir.

Word of the transformation spread quickly. Visitors from around the world were drawn not only to the amenities but to the romance of staying on a 310-acre private island steeped in over 800 years of history. From agricultural hub to celebrated hotel, Little Island had found a new way to flourish, marrying its storied past with a vibrant present.

Heraldry, Mystery, and Family Lore

When you step into the Great Hall of Waterford Castle today, the first thing to command the eye — high above the stone fireplace — is the Fitzgerald Coat of Arms. More than decoration, it is a visual biography of the family, each emblem and crest a fragment of their long story.

The shield is quartered, displaying:

• Crescent moons — traditionally a mark of a second son, though here more likely symbolising resilience and continuity through generations.

• Stars — representing guidance and constancy, a poetic nod to the Fitzgeralds’ role as navigators of river, politics, and fortune.

• Boars’ heads — emblems of courage and ferocity in battle, recalling the family’s martial origins in the Norman Conquest.

Flanking the shield are angelic supporters, carved guardians suggesting divine protection, while above it sits the family motto:
Crom A Boo — “Crom forever” — a war cry tied to Croom Castle in County Limerick, one of the Fitzgeralds’ ancestral strongholds.

Among these dignified symbols, one stands apart: a monkey clasping a crescent moon and star. This unusual figure preserves a cherished family legend. As the story goes, an infant Fitzgerald, heir to Little Island, lay in his cradle when fire broke out in the castle. Flames spread rapidly, and all seemed lost — until the family’s pet monkey seized the child and clambered to safety. In gratitude, the Fitzgeralds placed the monkey on their heraldic shield and later planted a Monkey Puzzle Tree before the castle. That tree still stands, its spiky branches a living monument to loyalty in an unlikely form.

The Great Hall itself amplifies the sense of layered history. Elizabethan oak panelling lines the walls, warm and dark, while 16th-century plaster ceilings bloom with intricate floral motifs. Around the room are objects steeped in Fitzgerald provenance: recovered tapestries, gilded mirrors, portraits of racehorses, Georgian furniture, and a George III longcase clock whose steady tick is as much a part of the hall as the crackle of the hearth.

Here, medieval heraldry, Renaissance craftsmanship, Georgian refinement, and Victorian storytelling coexist in harmony. Every carving and relic tells part of a narrative that — like the Fitzgerald name itself — has endured war, politics, and the slow passage of centuries.

A New Chapter: Seamus Walsh and the Island’s Future

In 2015, Little Island and Waterford Castle came under the stewardship of Seamus Walsh, a native of nearby Mullinavat, County Kilkenny. For Walsh, the purchase was not simply an investment but a homecoming — a chance for a local family to safeguard and enhance one of Ireland’s most storied estates.

Under his ownership, the island has been reinvigorated with a blend of heritage conservation and modern hospitality. The castle continues to operate as a luxury hotel, its wood-panelled halls, heraldic ceilings, and Neo-Gothic wings preserved with meticulous care. Surrounding it, the golf course and 48 lodges have been refreshed, offering guests both active recreation and serene escape.

Walsh’s vision extends beyond tourism. Plans are underway to restore the 1870s farm buildings and stable yards, repurposing them for new uses while preserving their historic character. The goal is to harmonise 19th-century craftsmanship with 21st-century comfort, ensuring the estate remains both authentic and alive.

Equally important is the community of people who sustain the island. Many staff members have served here for over 25 years, carrying forward traditions of service and storytelling that bind past to present. Under the Walsh family, they have been warmly embraced, their experience and loyalty recognised as central to the island’s success.

For visitors, this means more than luxury accommodation. It is the chance to enter an unbroken continuum of history — to dine beneath heraldry centuries old, to sleep within walls built by Fitzgeralds and Purcell-Fitzgeralds, and to walk grounds where every stone and tree whispers of the past. In Walsh’s stewardship, Little Island remains what it has always been: a place apart, cherished, and shared.

Epilogue: The Ferries of Little Island

It was on a recent stroll along the banks of the River Suir that I came upon a sight that not only links Little Island to the mainland, but also the past with the present: the Mary Fitzgerald, a cable-guided ferry, quietly plying its short course across the channel. The boat is named after Mary Frances Fitzgerald, the lady of the island, (1775–1855). To the best of my knowledge, this is the last of its kind in Ireland, operating here in County Waterford, just a kilometre downriver from the city.

Until the dawn of the 20th century, King’s Channel served as the primary route for commercial vessels bound for Waterford City Quays. This changed when Queen’s Channel, on the northern side of the island, was widened and straightened, diverting traffic and altering the flow of river commerce. In our own time, the deepwater port at Belview, on the Kilkenny bank of the Suir, now receives the majority of shipping.

Within living memory, however, access to Little Island was of a very different character. Locals would cross from Grantstown or Ballinakill in a Prong, a distinctive rowing boat of the Waterford estuary. Later, farm produce was shipped to the city aboard an elderly powered Gabbard barge, before this, too, gave way to more modern conveyances: an American World War II DUKW amphibious truck, and later a wartime Landing Craft capable of carrying heavier vehicles.

The great change came in 1958, when chain-guided ferries were introduced. The first purpose-built vessel for the run was the MF Strongbow, launched from the Verolme Dockyard in Cork in 1968 and entering service the following year. In subsequent decades, the route saw a variety of craft: the Scandinavian-built Little Island Ferry; Elvera, once a Swedish lake ferry; and, in 2008, the MF Loreley V, a former River Rhine ferry built in Germany in 1959. The Loreley V could carry 18 cars and 57 passengers, and employed a quieter cable-wire system in place of the older chain mechanism. Her service ended in August 2014.

Today the ferry crossing, guided by cables strung between slipways on either side of King’s Channel, takes no more than three minutes, even against a racing current of up to eight knots. It is a free, privately run service, operating around the clock — every fifteen minutes by day, and on demand by night.

So, should your own steps bring you to the banks of the Suir, pause a while, think of the history of the place and look across the water. You may see the Mary Fitzgerald gliding from shore to shore — a working vessel, yes, but also a living fragment of Ireland’s maritime story, linking centuries past with the steady pulse of the present tide.

Sources:

https://www.waterfordcastleresort.com/ 

https://irelandmade.ie/irelands-only-cable-guided-ferry-season-3-episode-31/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterford_Castle 

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