This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Sylvie Kleinman and Frances Clarke. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Born: 5 February 1771, Ireland
Died: 20 January 1851
Country most active: Ireland, United Kingdom
Also known as: NA
Fitzgerald (Foley), Lady Lucy Anne (1771–1851), radical, was born on 5 February 1771, probably in Leinster House, Dublin, the seventeenth of nineteen children of James Fitzgerald, first duke of Leinster, and Lady Emily Fitzgerald, daughter of Charles Lennox, second duke of Richmond. In 1774, a year after her father’s death, her mother and the family tutor, William Ogilvie, moved to France and married, taking Lucy and the younger Fitzgerald children with them. The family returned to Ireland in 1781, and moved to London in the late 1780s. Lucy was educated by her stepfather, and seems to have borne some resentment towards him.
Like her mother Emily, Lucy was a supporter of her cousin, the radical whig Charles James Fox, who welcomed the French revolution. She was influenced even more by her brother, Lord Edward FitzGerald, and shared his pro-catholic and republican sympathies. From October 1796 to May 1797 she was in Ireland, during which time she met many of her brother’s radical republican friends, most notably Arthur O’Connor. Until Edward’s death, she kept a lively diary, which included accounts of her engagements and views on the unfolding political crisis, but more importantly factual information on her brother’s movements, as she was frequently in the company of his French wife, Pamela. Like her, she wore her hair cropped, enjoyed Irish jigs and French revolutionary songs, made it known she had read Tom Paine, and spoke openly of her support for the United Irishmen. Impulsive and emotional, she appears to have enjoyed the fact that her democratic views and fashions put off many potential suitors. Her close friend Fanny Coutts kept her informed of the mood in London. Though she was more than once shocked by some of O’Connor’s statements, she was evidently fascinated with him and her entourage interpreted her emotional distress at his arrest in February 1797 as a sign she was in love with him. His imprisonment at Kilmainham prison until July 1797 intensified her radicalism, and he smuggled out letters to her written on the fly-leaf of a book. In London she worked for his release, and they met again before his arrest at Margate in March 1798.
After Lord Edward’s death (4 June 1798), and hoping to perpetuate his legacy, Lucy wrote an open letter, ‘To the Irish nation’, in which she encouraged a continuance of the republican struggle. Because of its incendiary nature Ogilvie prevented its publication. She also wrote to Thomas Paine, addressing him as ‘citizen’ throughout and enclosing a likeness of her brother. While her correspondence with O’Connor following his removal to Fort George in Scotland in March 1799 was the act of a loyal friend, it provides a useful record of his mood and the tensions between the exiled United Irishmen. Unlike her family, she never doubted O’Connor’s commitment to her brother Edward. In July 1802 she married Captain (later Admiral Sir) Thomas Foley (1757–1833) RN, who had served against the French in the 1790s; they had no children. Much of their married life was spent at his Carmarthenshire estate, and after his death in January 1833 she lived in Arundel. Throughout her life she cherished the memory of her brother Edward, and made it known that she thought Thomas Moore had not portrayed him accurately in his 1831 biography. In 1841 she returned to Marseilles, where she had lived as a young child, and died there on 20 January 1851.