James Fitzgerald was a member of the Irish House of Commons for many years and also represented Ennis in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
He was a prominent Tory politician and notably served as President of the Board of Trade between 1841 and 1843.
On 10 January 1835 he was created Baron FitzGerald, of Desmond and of Clan Gibbon in the County of York, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
He was succeeded in the Irish barony by his younger brother, the third Baron and Dean of Kilmore.
Sir William Vesey-FitzGerald, the illegitimate son of the second Baron, was a politician.