Father Andrew Fitzgerald O.P, (November 30, 1763 – December 14, 1843) a native of Kilkenny, he was a professor at St. Patrick's College, Carlow where he taught classics, he was chair of divinity.
He was born in 1763 to James FitzGerald and Mary Fitzgerald (Nee Knarsborough ) in High Street, Kilkenny City, he went to school in the Church of Ireland run Kilkenny College

Kilkenny College

Kilkenny College or KCK is a co-educational secondary school located in Kilkenny, in the South-East of Ireland. It is a private school which caters for both boarders and day students. It is the largest co-educational boarding school in Ireland...

 and at the age of 16 went to study in the University of Louvain becoming a dominican friar, he also studied in Lisbon and returned to Ireland in 1792. He joined the teaching staff at Carlow College in 1800.

Amongst his students in Carlow was the Irish patriot James Fintan Lalor

James Fintan Lalor

James Fintan Lalor was an Irish revolutionary, journalist, and “one of the most powerful writers of his day.” A leading member of the Irish Confederation , he was to play an active part in both the Rebellion in July 1848 and the attempted Rising in September of that same year...

.

In 1810 Fitzgerlad then Professor of Theology at Carlow College, invited the Presentation Sisters to set up a school for girls in Carlow, which they did in 1811.

He succeeded Dr. Henry Staunton in 1814 to became president of the college, some years earlier he had left his teaching position being replaced by James Warren Doyle

James Warren Doyle

Bishop James Doyle was a Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin in Ireland, who used the signature “JKL”, an acronym from “James Kildare and Leighlin.” A campaigner for Catholic Emancipation up to 1829, he was also an educator, church organiser and the builder of Carlow cathedral.-Early...

, in dispute with the college only to return soon afterwards.
He was imprisoned during the Tithe War

Tithe War

The Tithe War was a campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience, punctuated by sporadic violent episodes, in Ireland between 1830-36 in reaction to the enforcement of Tithes on subsistence farmers and others for the upkeep of the established state church - the Church of Ireland...

 in 1832 for his refusal to pay tithes when he was president of the College.

Fr. Fitzgerald proposed Nicholas Aylward Vigors

Nicholas Aylward Vigors

Nicholas Aylward Vigors was an Irish zoologist and politician.Vigors was born at Old Leighlin, County Carlow. He studied at Trinity College, Oxford. He served in the army during the Peninsular War from 1809 to 1811. He then returned to Oxford, graduating with a B.A. in 1815 and in 1817 with an...

 MP in the election 1832, and again in 1835, in Carlow borough, seconded by a fellow anti-tithes campaigner the quaker Thomas Haughton.

The French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution . In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in...

who toured Ireland in 1835, commented that Monseigneur Fitzgerald was a man of openly Catholic and democratic passions.