ROCHFORT, James. The Rochforts.

Illustrated. Maynooth: Maynooth University Press, 2012. Royal octavo. pp. vi, 7-173. Pictorial boards. A fine copy.

The Rochfort family came to Ireland (possibly from France) in the thirteenth century and acquired substantial lands in counties Kildare, Meath and Westmeath. Several members of the family were prominent lawyers and politicians. They gained the title Earl of Belvedere, and gave their name to the village of Rochfortbridge. The main Rochfort line ended with the death of the 2nd Earl of Belvedere in 1814. While the name is clearly French, the family’s precise origins are a matter of conjecture. They had settled in Ireland by 1243, when Sir Richard de Rochfort and Sir John de Rochfort were the lords of Crom and Adare. Sir John was still alive in 1269. In 1300 Henry de Rochfort surrendered three manors in Kildare to the Crown. In about 1316 his widow Isabel, who had held Rathcoffey, Kildare as her dower lands, died: Rathcoffey reverted to the Crown, which granted it to John Wogan, lately Justiciar of Ireland. Sir Maurice Rochfort was Lord Justice of Ireland in 1302. Another Sir John Rochfort, who held his lands as a tenant-in-chief from the Crown, died in 1359, in which year the Privy Council of Ireland ordered that his widow Joanna be paid “a reasonable dower”.

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