[1] He was the second son of John Fitzpatrick of Castletown, Queen's County, by Elizabeth, fourth daughter of Thomas Butler, Viscount Thurles, and relict of James Purcell of Loughmoe.
Having distinguished himself on that station, he was advanced on 11 January 1690 to the command of HMS St Albans, a fourth rate, with which on 18 July he captured off Rame Head a French frigate of 36 guns, after a fight of four hours, in which the enemy lost forty men killed and wounded, the casualties on board St Albans being only four; and the French ship was so shattered that she had to be towed into Plymouth.
[1] In February 1690–1, he drove on shore two French frigates and helped to cut out fourteen merchantmen from a convoy of twenty-two.
In command of the 70-gun HMS Burford, he served under Lord Berkeley in 1696, and in July was detached to make a descent on the Groix, an island near Belle Île, off the west coast of Brittany, from which he brought off thirteen hundred head of cattle, with horses, boats, and small vessels.
[1] In 1696, he had received a grant of the town and lands of Grantstown and other lands in Queen's County by King William III in consideration of their faithful services, and entered the Irish House of Commons in 1713 as the member for Queen's County until he was raised to the Irish peerage on 27 April 1715 as Baron Gowran of Gowran, Kilkenny.