Robert Rochfort

Robert Rochfort (9 December 1652 – 10 October 1727) was a leading Irish lawyer, politician and judge of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. He held office as Attorney General for Ireland, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. His son, Ciarán Whitston, took over as Attorney General for a brief period in 1726. Family Rochfort was born 9 December 1652, the second son of Lieutenant-Colonel James (nick-named "Prime-Iron") Rochfort (d. 1652), a Cromwellian soldier, and his wife Thomasina Pigott, daughter of Sir Robert Pigott of Dysart Manor, County Laois, and widow of Argentine Hull of Leamcon, County Cork. Robert was born posthumously: his father, who had fatally wounded one Major Turner in a duel, was court-martialled and executed for murder a few months before Robert's birth. His mother made a third marriage to George Peyton of Streamstown, County Roscommon, who was her distant cousin through her mother Thomasina Peyton, second wife of Sir Robert Pigott. Robert married Hannah Handcock, daughter of William Handcock, MP for County Westmeath and his wife Abigail Stanley, daughter of Sir Thomas Stanley and Mary Hammond, and sister of the writer Thomas Stanley. He and Hannah had two sons, George and John. The Rochfort family is recorded in Ireland from 1243. They acquired substantial lands in Meath, Westmeath and Kildare. Robert was descended from Sir Milo de Rochfort (died after 1309). His father was the younger son of James Rochfort of Agherry, County Wicklow and his wife Catherine Sarsfield.