For those who are not subscribers to the Fitzgerald List on Roots Web, and to those who are subscribers, this bit of data which may be used to fill a bit of space in the family history you are compiling. Chuck FitzGerald THE CROSS OF ST. PATRICK AND FITZ GERALD “After seven centuries the proud feudal arms of most early Norman nobles survive only as quarterings in modern shields, or in the heraldry of a few cities and towns. Now, however, we turn to an emblem which, while of small account among its 13th century contemporaries, has become a part of a national flag. The most notable memorial of the Anglo-Norman ( rect. Cambro-Norman ) settlement in Ireland is the Irish national banner, the red saltire upon white which tradition associates with St. Patrick. Unfortunately for tradition, St. Patrick had no more to do with the Cross of St. Patrick than the South Saxons had to do with the swallows of Sussex. The cross clearly originated in the arms of one of the greatest Irish feudal families, the Fitz Geralds, who bore a red saltire on silver. In 1170, Maurice Fitz Gerald led an expedition to Ireland to help McMurrough, King of Leinster, against O’Connor, who claimed to be King of Ireland. This Fitz Gerald’s descendants became Earls of Kildare and of Desmond, all leading spirits in Irish affairs, whether as Lords Deputy or ‘agin t.he Government’. The arms of Fitz Geralds were so intimately connected with great events in Irish history that they came to be regarded as national insignia, and associated with the national saint. And six and a half centuries after the Fitz Gerald saltire left England (rect. Wales) to seek its fortune in Ireland, it returned, canonised, to take its place in the Union Jack.” --C. Wilfrid Scott-Giles, O.B.E., Fitzalan Pursuivant of Arms Extraordinary - “The Romance of Heraldry”, pp. 67-68.