A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Desmond, Countess of, Catharine Fitzgerald
DESMOND, COUNTESS OF, CATHARINE FITZGERALD,
Who attained the age of one hundred and forty-five years, was a daughter of the house of Drumana, in the county of Waterford, Ireland, and second wife of James, twelfth Earl of Desmond, to whom she was married in the reign of Edward the Fourth, (1461,) and being on that occasion presented at court, she danced with the Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard the Third. The beauty and vivacity of Lady Desmond rendered her an object of attraction to a very advanced age, and she had passed her hundredth year before she could refrain from dancing, or mingling in gay assemblies. She resided at Inchiquin, in Munster, and held her jointure as dowager from many successive Earls of Desmond, till the family being by an attainder deprived of their estate, she was reduced to poverty. Although then one hundred and forty, she went to London, laid her case before James the First, and obtained relief. Sir Walter Raleigh was well acquainted with this lady, and mentions her as a prodigy. Lord Bacon informs us that she had three new sets of natural teeth. It is uncertain in what year she died, but she was not living in 1617, when Sir Walter Raleigh published his history.