Career
Alfred Webb tells us of this earl that:
He was known as Thomas the Bald and Thomas the Victorious. He died at Rathkeale in 1534, aged 80, and was buried at Youghal."
Thomas"s wife was the Old Countess of Desmond, Katherine Fitzgerald, born around 1460. A portrait in Britain"s National Portrait Gallery is captioned As she appeared at ye Court of our Sovereign Lord, King James, in thys present AD. 1614, and in ye 140th Yeare of her Age.
Thither She came from Bristol, to seek Relief, ye House of Desmond having been ruined by Attainder.
Laus Deo. The Old Countess is said to have died at the age of 160 when she fell out of a cherry tree in the garden of her castle at Inchiquin while harvesting the fruit, though this sadly appears unlikely.